Founded in 1890, Gordon’s Wine Bar is thought to be the oldest wine bar in London. It’s great charm is that little has changed since its founding, and never will. The place oozes with history; the building was the home of Samuel Pepys in the 1680s and the home of Rudyard Kipling around the time…
Tag: History
Rough Spirits & High Society – The Culture of Drink
Rough Spirits & High Society – The Culture of Drink by Ruth Ball is an absorbing look at the development of drinking culture in Britain over the past 500 years or so. Some elements will be more familiar than others, coffee houses and gin lane come to mind here, but Ball brings every element into…
Charles I: King and Collector ★★★★★
Over the course of his reign Charles I and his wife Henrietta Maria built up, through commissions and acquisitions, one of the world’s greatest art collections, only for the majority of it to be sold off in the Commonwealth sales just weeks after the king’s execution in 1649. While the Restoration in 1660 saw many…
The Philosophy of Coffee by Brian Williams
At 95 pages long Brian Williams’ The Philosophy of Coffee, as he points out at the start, is not a definitive history or guide to coffee. What it is is the perfect introduction to the subject. For over 5 years now Brian Williams’ has been writing on coffee on his blog Brian’s Coffee Spot building…