We’re not cock(tail)teases, really. We do want to let you in on all the secrets, but first of all we want to give you the chance to prove that you’re hip­per and groovi­er than every­one else by identi­fy­ing the bar in ques­tion.

In the end, it was­n’t long before one of the many anons picked the last mys­tery bar as Duke Carvell’s Swan Lane Empori­um, run by the Bresolin boys and delect­able in every way. But who’s going to be the first to identi­fy this place?

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As we flies were smugly alight­ing at the bar, we noticed that not much had vis­ibly changed since our last vis­its. But changes are indeed afoot: it’s been taken over by anoth­er of Wel­ling­ton’s most not­able hospo fam­il­ies, and appar­ently a full renov­a­tion is on the way to go with the new name. As it is, it’s some­what in limbo, so it might be worth wait­ing a little while for them to start mak­ing their mark and reviv­i­fy­ing its for­tunes.

While prov­ing ourselves hip­per-than-thou by enga­ging in some banter about celebrit­ies we know (“Have you heard what Dami­an’s been get­ting up to?” “Ooh, do tell!”) we asked for the cock­tail list. How­ever, that par­tic­u­lar pub­lic­a­tion appears to be out of date, since they’re all from the pre­vi­ous incarn­a­tion and no-one knows how to make them. Although the new bar man­ager is a chef and is plan­ning all sorts of molecu­lar mix­o­logy malar­key for the upcom­ing 42 Below champs, he had­n’t worked behind a bar for a while and was more than a little unsure. Nev­er­the­less, a Mar­tini made with more apo­lo­gies than olives was more than drink­able (as evinced by the empti­ness of the glass in our photo), and both the Jamaic­an Mule and an apple-crumble-inspired con­coc­tion were lapped up by the sweeter-mand­ibled flies amongst us.

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The music selec­tion, which on a quiet night veered between loud elec­tro and louder house, might not be to every­one’s taste. Ser­i­ously, darlings, who listens to any­thing but alt-prog-swamp-coun­try these days? But we’re expect­ing great things from the new own­ers’ magic touch (no pres­sure, boys!). Where, oh where, can we have been? (No, ser­i­ously, we’d like to know because we can­’t remem­ber a thing).