My editor has been nagging me to
actually write something about Midway’s cocktail bars (Huh! Typical man!) ever
since the
MORON
had gone to the trouble of
hyping up my “All Mixed Up” column a few weeks
ago.
So I got together with my
bestest mates Chantelle and Chardonnay and twisted my boyfriend’s reluctant arm
(typical man!) to drop us off at Dipsy’s
Mixey Rabbit, a little-known and rather bizarre Teletubbies-themed venue in
the heart of the buzzing Friday night scene of Chattingham’s Grott Street.
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| Stock photo of cocktail bar... |
My mission was to review not
only the cocktails on offer, but also to examine the entire “Dipsy’s Mixey Rabbit
experience” from a female perspective. All too often, cocktail bars seem
designed solely for a male gaze, the drinks boasting boozy gravitas over
nuanced flavour, the atmosphere prioritising loud machismo over comfortable
conversation. I was here to see if
Dipsy’s
Mixey Rabbit broke the mold, offering a space where a woman, whether on a
solo adventure or a night out with friends, could feel both seen and
appreciated, not just another pretty face ordering a sugary concoction.
That’s just a load of
AI-generated bollocks, of course.
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| Photo of some cocktails... |
I was actually just out on a company-sponsored
lash with a couple of girly mates, but hey, whatever…
The drinks menu offered a weird
and wonderful selection of extremely expensive drinks. We started with a round
of Badenoch’s Blusterers, a
concoction consisting of rye, maple syrup, Peychaud’s bitters (any ideas?) and
ambergris (me neither). They tasted of fish and were rather unpleasant, but as
the drinks were very large and very free (a chum of the editor’s owns the joint
and was happy to subsidise our alcoholic adventures given the guarantee of a
good review) we weren’t complaining.
Next up was a round of Jenrick’s Palmgreasers, an extremely
rich, extremely strange and very alcoholic mix of tequila, dark rum, chorizo,
vegetable juice, port, pepper and cider vinegar, all liquidised together and
topped off with a strip of jerk chicken. It certainly saved us ordering
anything from the range of available bar food, but once we’d finished the
drinks we weren’t really in the mood to eat anything anyway.
By now, the dance floor was
packed with people. We got caught up in the energy, swaying to the music and
even attempted a few questionable dance moves. My mate Chantelle even made a
new friend, a hunky-looking guy named Ben who was surprisingly good at air
guitar.
After a while my heels were
starting to hurt, but my laughter was only getting louder. Chantelle was having
a good time with her new friend Ben, so me and Chardonnay ordered a couple of
Truss’s Tapeworms, an utterly
psychedelic blend of vodka, gin, tabasco, pepper and absinthe, with a squirt
of mayonnaise that looked like (you’ve guessed it) a tapeworm floating in an
alcoholic miasma - and garnished
with a lettuce, complete with googly eyes...
I think the mayonnaise must have
had a maudlin effect on poor Chardonnay, who began getting tearful about her
beau of three years, Steve, forgetting her birthday last week.
Huh! Typical man!
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| Another photo of some cocktails... |
By now, Chantelle had
disappeared with her new friend, so I was left to console the increasingly lachrymose
Chardonnay with a round of Mexican-sounding
Los
Cojones Del Tipo Duro De Boris’s. What the name means I don’t know but they
were the most expensive drinks on the list, consisting of (so the menu said)
white rum, tequila, mint leaves, soda, lime juice, chocolate and liquidised
bull’s testicles.
Things became a little
indistinct after that. I vaguely remember Chantelle’s boyfriend turning up to
collect her and getting quite emotional when we told him she’d gone off with
someone else.
Huh! Typical man!
The next thing I knew, I was
back in my own flat and it was ten in the morning. My rather grumpy partner said that Chardonnay had not been too well on the journey home, with the
chocolate from her last drink making a spectacular reappearance in his car.
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| "...show me the way to go 'ome..." |
Thank God for the leather seats.
I also couldn’t work out why I was
wearing my boyfriend’s pyjamas. Later, when the room had stopped spinning
around, he explained that I also had suffered a biological disorder
on the journey home, with last night’s outfit being consigned to a bin-bag
after he had hosed me down in the shower, dried me off and put me to bed.
Huh! Typical man!
Now, back at our flat, I'm still
feeling a little bit tipsy, but mostly just content. That was a perfect night
to let loose, laugh, and just be with my friends. I think I might even need a
'recovery weekend', but it was worth it.
So here’s how I rate
Dipsy’s Mixey Rabbit:
Décor: Can’t remember much about it. Probably OK. ****
Drinks: Difficult to say, to be honest. They must have been pretty
good as I can’t remember a thing about them. They certainly opened the sluices
at both ends, according to my boyfriend (Huh! Typical man!). Good job their
menu is on the Internet so I was able to look up the drinks I had. *****
Price: Ludicrously expensive, like all swanky cocktails. Thank God
we were on freebies all night courtesy of the MORON!*****
Staff: Friendly, attentive and happy to banter, even when we got
totally pissed *****
Best for: Picking up fellas (so says my mate Chantelle!) and
getting paralytic*****
Interestingly,
the real-world new column seems to have generated virtually no interest
comment-wise, and its title had been dropped from the “What’s On” menu. I
foresee this rather bland (and largely AI-composed?) feature being somewhat
short-lived.
What
was a lot more interesting was seeing an ad for an event fronted by the
ultra-right-wing thicko’s favourite smart person, Dr. Jordon Peterson, popping
up in this self-proclaimed “female perspective” piece. I see it got taken down pretty
quickly.
Flogging
Dr. Peterson’s weirdo brand of misogyny and right-wing rich-person’s free speech principles (i.e. ‘criticise me and
I’ll sue…’) seems a rather extreme choice of advert, but then I guess the
algorithm that chooses these things has simply identified its host as appealing
to well-off REFORM-voting pensioners and advertises accordingly.
Which
seems pretty accurate to me...
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