The Last Tuesday Society & Absinthe Parlour
The two people who own this bar went and built the first dedicated absinthe distillery in the country, two miles up the road in Leyton, and the house pour is theirs (The Spirits Business).
Why go
Allison Crawbuck and Rhys Everett opened the Absinthe Parlour inside Viktor Wynd's Museum of Curiosities in 2016. The society behind it is older: it came to London in autumn 2006 and took the Mare Street premises in 2008, first as a gallery and a curiosity shop. The bar came a decade after the building.
In January 2021 the pair launched Devil's Botany, which The Spirits Business calls "the UK's first dedicated absinthe distillery". Their London Absinthe is distilled under the same rules that define a London Dry gin and it does not cloud when you water it, which is deliberate. Everett's reason is a flavor argument: the anise and fennel step back so the lemon balm, the peppermint and the elderflower come forward. That is a distiller talking about a build, and it is the clearest evidence available that somebody here cares what is in the glass.
The list follows. Every cocktail on it carries absinthe in some measure, and behind the list runs a programme of tastings, masterclasses, lectures and drawing salons (The Buyer). The venue describes its back bar as the UK's most extensive list of premium quality, traditional absinthes
, which is the venue's claim rather than anyone's count.
Order this / avoid
- Order: absinthe at the fountain first, dripped cold, so you have the reference point. Then the house Devil's Botany, then an absinthe highball off the list. The Chocolate Absinthe Liqueur is the soft landing if the wormwood is too much.
- Avoid: Mondays, when the bar is shut. Do not assume the museum is thrown in either. The parlour and the galleries are free, the Wunderkabinett downstairs is a ticket.
What locals & experts say
- Rhys Everett, co-founder, in The Spirits Business, September 2023:
Innovation is key to unleashing absinthe's untapped potential. In the same way that distilleries have embraced the less juniper-forward contemporary style of gin, there is room for experimentation within the world of absinthe.
He owns the bar, so this is provenance, and it is quoted because it is the only technical account anyone has published of what they pour here.2 - London Cocktail Week's own listing:
Velvet banquettes, plenty of dark, candle-lit corners and a whole host of regular tastings and workshops make this, in our opinion, a brilliant first date spot.
The same page adds a useful practical line:the hospitable staff will always be more than happy to mix up an off-menu classic instead, if you so wish.
Undated, and the masthead's rather than a named writer's.4 - Awards, with their scope stated: Best Bar in London at the 2019 DesignMyNight Awards, decided by a public vote of over 180,000 people, and an Imbibe shortlist for Specialist List of the Year in 2020 for the absinthe menu specifically. Both are as the venue records them.1
- No critic has reviewed it. Ten years open and nothing bylined was found in Time Out, the Standard, CLASS or Difford's on 1 August 2026. Nobody in the London chef and bartender vote file names it either.
Good to know
- Where: 11 Mare Street E8 4RP, the Cambridge Heath end, in the Viktor Wynd Museum building.
- Timing: closed Mondays. Tuesday to Thursday from 3pm, Friday to midnight, Saturday from noon to midnight, Sunday noon to 10pm. The venue is sometimes hired out on weekdays for filming, so ring 020 8533 5297 before a long trip.
- Booking: the venue strongly encourages reservations for the parlour.
- Admission: the bar and the galleries are free. The Wunderkabinett downstairs is twelve pounds, eight with concessions, students, or a bar reservation.
- Absinthe Hour: every weekday until six, which is the one place the money moves.
- Age and dogs: under-18s only before 5pm and with a guardian. Dogs at the few outside tables only.
- Sites: one. Devil's Botany, the owners' distillery in Leyton, is a separate business with its own registration, and nothing about it attaches to this address beyond the bottle behind the bar.
- Hygiene: the FSA holds this premises at 5, rated 5 September 2022, under Hackney, registered as Viktor Wynd Limited. FHRSID 991625.
Verdict
should-visit — Worth the detour, and the reason is in the bottle rather than in the taxidermy. Allison Crawbuck and Rhys Everett opened the Absinthe Parlour inside Viktor Wynd's museum in 2016, and in January 2021 they went and built Devil's Botany, the first dedicated absinthe distillery in the country, in Leyton. The house pour is theirs. Everett's own explanation of what they made is a technical argument rather than a marketing one: their London Absinthe is distilled to London Dry rules and deliberately will not louche, because 'the liquorice-like flavour of green anise and fennel seed is slightly less dominant in this new genre of absinthe, allowing supporting flavours and aromas of other botanicals to stand out'. Around that sits a real programme of tastings, masterclasses and lectures, and a list where every cocktail carries absinthe in some measure. Depth is the craft axis here, not rotation, and depth is what a single-spirit bar is supposed to have. It holds at should-visit rather than higher for two reasons stated plainly: the claim to the UK's deepest absinthe list is the venue's own with no independent count behind it, and in ten years no critic with a byline has assessed a drink in this room.