The Candlelight Club
Cocktails by Candlelight at a Secret London Venue…step back in time to the era of 1920′s prohibtion and join the Candlelight Club for an evening of innovative cocktails, live jazz music and 1920′s glamour.
The candlelight Club is a clandestine pop-up cocktail bar in a secret London venue, a stunning, tucked-away den with a 1920s speakeasy flavour, lit only by candles. Each event offers a one-off bespoke cocktail menu and there are special themes, guest mixologists and featured ingredients, with food and drink masterminded by Will Sprunt, plus vintage DJing and live music.
For every legitimate bar that closed as a result of Prohibition, half a dozen illegal ones opened. By the mid-1920s there were, according to some estimates, as many as 100,000 speakeasies in New York City alone. It was said that you could get a drink in pretty much every building on 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
Some got by simply by bribing everyone from the police to the Federal Prohibition Agents. Others used secrecy—the term “night club” was coined in this era as a euphemism and members were given passwords to gain entrance. The 21 Club had four different alarm buttons in the lobby, which automatically sealed off the five secret booze stores and tipped the shelves in the bar, dropping all the bottles into the sewers. Some of the alcohol was actually stored in the basement of the building next door, accessed through a brick door that weighed two tons. At the Colony the booze was kept on a lift that could whisk it into the attic or the basement if there was a raid. Claudio’s was built on a pier—at low tide liquor was lifted up through a trap door from boats sailing underneath.
To celebrate this age of guile and ingenuity—when drinking suddenly became more glamorous and exciting, ordinary citizens became criminals and for the first time bars became hangouts for women just as much as men— each Candlelight Club evening brings you a unique menu of both classic and specially created cocktails.
Guests to the club dress in glamorous, vintage apparel and enjoy live 1920s jazz music. In keeping with the speakeasy theme the actual location of each party is kept secret and only revealed to ticket holders a couple of days prior to the event. Drinks are served in simple utilitarian glassware, wine bottles are wrapped in brown paper bags and a simple complimentary supper of sandwiches is laid on.
For afficionados of vintage culture or mixology this night is a must!
Dress code: 1920s dandies and gangsters, degenerate aristos, decadent aesthetes, corrupt politicians and the Smart Set In the Know
London Events Calendar – Unusual London Events
For tickets please visit – The Candlelight Club
