Finally putting us on level-pegging with the domestic cat, we the drinking public now have Nine Lives – a subterranean drinking den on Holyrood Street, it comes to us from the cocktailing maestros behind Sweet&Chilli (a specialist drinks agency), and it proudly bears a zero-waste ethos.
The space itself is set in a Victorian basement near London Bridge, with colonial style chairs and wicker, Asian lampshades to round it out. On the menu, you’ll find signatures like the Moby Dick (coconut oil-washed grain whisky, with a salted caramel syrup), and the Ômu Kooler (Campari with a watermelon & cucumber home’ade).
And when they say zero-waste, they apparently mean it: the menu has a whole section dedicated to ‘Loops’, referring to drinks where the team have reused key ingredients and given them a new lease of life. Take the humble lemon: here they’ve used not just the juice, but the skin and the oils in cocktails; the pith is then distilled to release essential oils which can be used to make liqueurs and hand soap; and anything else possibly left over after that is neutralised and composted to help grow herbs in their back garden.
And to top it all off, there’s even a separate games room, with shuffleboard.
It’s cool for cats.
NOTE: Nine Lives is now open, and you can check out their website right HERE.
Nine Lives | 8 Holyrood Street, SE1 2EL
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