The Cocktail Trading Co.
Every drink costs the same whether it came off the menu or out of your head, and the three bartenders who own the place still work the shifts.3
Why go
The flat price is the bar's own idea and it says why in its own words: We put crazy amounts of work into the concepts, flavours and presentations of our menu drinks, but we shan't weep endlessly should you just fancy a classic. Everything is the same price too - a tenner, whether it's on or off the menu.
3 Time Out counted two dozen cocktails at nine pounds apiece when it reviewed the room in 2016, so treat the figure as the policy rather than tonight's number.2
Three lifelong bartenders founded it and they run it as a cooperative. Our company culture exists to support the team,
they write, something we don't believe to be possible without the directors themselves pulling the same shifts,
and they restructured the whole operation after we realised how impossible a healthy work-life balance was on five night-shifts a week.
1 The drinks list rewards that seriousness: past menus have run a Gelemo-Ardbeg whisky blend with smoked watermelon syrup and egg white, and an Evan Williams nightcap with house sweet vermouth, Solo Club coffee and salted choco-chartreuse.3
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Handy Nightcap if it is on. Time Out found it
used a frozen golf ball instead of ice
.2 - Order: the One In A Million,
sharp and refreshing with a chilli kick and a lottery ticket
.2 - Order: a classic without apology. The bar's own line is that it will not weep if you do, and Time Out found the espresso martini "rich and gulpable".
- Avoid: arriving before 5pm on a weekday. Doors open at 5, and at 2pm on Saturday and Sunday.1
- Avoid: coming for a quiet drink. Time Out held nothing against the room except the playlist.
What locals & experts say
- Time Out London, 15 April 2016, five stars, with the complaint intact:
Beleaguered by a Maximum Dad Rock playlist, it was hard to focus on the excellent drinks they kept sending our way. Okay, it wasn't that hard.
Time Out called itthe best place for a first date in the whole East End
, onits superb booze and constant stream of icebreaking surprises
.2 - Top 50 Cocktail Bars, in its own profile of the room:
it is smart and looks the part of a good-time venue with a great atmosphere and equally great rock and roll music
,decorated like an old British pub, with the central focus of the room being the bar which is filled with various nick-nacks and colourful bottles.
3 - Nothing bylined has scored this bar since 2016, which is the honest limit of the critical record here.
Good to know
- Where: 68 Bethnal Green Road E1 6GQ, off Brick Lane, a couple of minutes from Shoreditch High Street.
- Hours: Monday to Wednesday 5pm to 11.30pm, Thursday and Friday 5pm to midnight, Saturday 2pm to midnight, Sunday 2pm to 11pm.1
- Award: a Rising Star Award 2025 badge sits on its Top 50 Cocktail Bars profile. The page names no category, so nothing more is claimed for it.3
- The company lists this door and no other. The Soho original closed and the Smithfield branch is history.
- Elsewhere: the same team collaborates on Her Majesty's Secret Service in Clifton, Bristol, which is Ben Alcock's business rather than a branch.
Verdict
should-visit — Three bartenders own this room, they still work the shifts in it, and they charge one price for every drink whether it came off the menu or out of your head. The Top 50 Cocktail Bars profile quotes their own line for it, a tenner either way, and the same page lists builds worth reading: a Gelemo-Ardbeg blend with smoked watermelon syrup, an Evan Williams nightcap with salted choco-chartreuse. Time Out gave it five stars in April 2016 and the drinks it describes are the ones that stick, a nightcap chilled with a frozen golf ball and a chilli-kicked One In A Million handed over with a lottery ticket. The bar restructured its own rota when the founders decided five night-shifts a week was not survivable, which is a rarer thing to publish than a menu. Two things hold it below the top rung: the last scored review is ten years old, and the award badge on the Top 50 profile carries no stated category.