Skylon
Royal Festival Hall
Belvedere Road
London
SE1 8XX
Glenn Fiddich
Just after we arrived at Skylon, Fiddich Senior and I were presented with two complimentary glasses of iced water and a tiny porcelain bowl of rice crackers.
"Oh, I'm not sure we want any of these," said Fiddich Senior to our waitress, who looked like an extra from the first series of Star Trek. "Whatever they are."
"They're Japanese," she said, with the tiniest of sighs. "To go with your drinks."
Fiddich Senior, whose admiration for Vesta beef curries has remained undimmed by the passing of the years, looked pained.
"Yes, I think we'll give them a miss," he said. On the eve of his sixtieth birthday, my father was about to try his first cocktail, and he was determined not to enjoy it.
You see, Fiddich Senior comes from a little village in Cumbria - let's call it Ramsbottom. All the ales in his local boozer have names like Badger's Arse and Get Your Tits Out. In Ramsbottom, any man ordering a drink in a long-stemmed glass is regarded with the very deepest suspicion. But my tales of Skylon, with its grand river views and gourmet bar snacks, had intrigued him. We've always had a rather competitive father-son relationship (every Sports Day, he used to abandon me in the Parents' Race and team up with a thinner, faster child), and he likes to prove me wrong. So he booked a return ticket to Euston and prepared himself to be disappointed. He was, he told me firmly, really only coming down to London to visit the Imperial War Museum.
With the crackers gone, Fiddich Senior turned his attention to the Skylon cocktail menu, which is divided into classics (Martini, Margarita and several others beginning with M), seasonal specials, Bellinis and desert cocktails. As I talked him through the various options, he looked longingly at the whiskys.
I decided to go for my usual, the Skylon Spritzer (Apperol and rhubarb with a lemon and grapefruit twist, topped up with sparkling wine), while Fiddich Senior, after much hmming and tutting, chose the Prunelle (fresh plums muddled shaken with Prunelle plum liqueur, Krupnik honey vodka, lemon and apple juice).
"Very good for the digestion, plums," he told our waitress when she brought the drinks over. "Well, here goes." Then he took a deep breath, lifted his glass (a Martini glass, never to be mentioned in Ramsbottom) and took a cautious sip through pursed lips.
"Well?" I asked. Fiddich Senior swilled the contents of his mouth around, looking thoughtful.
"Room spray," he said eventually. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "But nice room spray." He took another sip, a bigger one this time, and smiled. "You know, I might have another one of these. And some of those Japanese things, too."
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