Idle Hands

Having made his mark on the bar scene as the chief executive officer of Sago House Group, cocktail maverick Jay Gray has launched Idle Hands, a new bar that has taken over the second floor of 98 Club Street. Playfulness and simplicity run the new bar—some of Gray’s golden rules include instructions to “keep it simple stupid”, where no drink is made with more than four steps or ingredients, and “ain’t no one got time for that”, where each drink can be explained succinctly in one sentence. The result is a cocktail menu that caters to all kinds of cocktail profiles, from “sours and highballs”, to “strong and stirred” drinks and non- and low-alcoholic tipples. Look out for the “Thiccboi”, where coconut oil-washed gin is mixed with sage vermouth in a herbaceous twist on a martini, or the “Chocolate Orange” with cold-drip vermouth, Oloroso and Pedro Ximenez sherry, and orange vodka.