Milroy's - A Bar Review
On our first night in London, after seeing a show in Soho, we wandered a few blocks north to this famous whiskey shop and bar. Milroy's has a 50-year history of being one of the city's premier suppliers of whiskey, so they know their stuff. Unfortunately, there were a few kinks to the experience that made it less than stellar.
Atmosphere and Service: Milroy's has a hectic, cramped feel. The main floor bar is a narrow space, flanked on the opposite side by shelves full of bottles for sale. There are easily 150 or so bottles behind the bar itself, and then room for the people seated at the bar and one or two rows of people behind them waiting for a drink. The bar has a downstairs area called the Vault, where it hosts tasting events. The night we were there, however, the Vault was closed for a private event, so we didn't get a chance to check it out.
Milroy's was quite busy the night we were there, which I suppose speaks well of its reputation among Londoners. The customers seemed to be evenly split between native London residents and tourists, which was common everywhere in the city (i.e., we heard a lot of people with American accents here, as we did elsewhere). The downside to how busy it was, and how cramped it was, was that it took a good 20 minutes just to get one round of drinks.
In addition, one aspect that didn't thrill me was watching the barmen dry off the glasses with a dirty rag. I'm not sure how normal this practice is, but haven't noticed it happening as prominently elsewhere -- it seemed like glasses got a quick wash and then were rubbed dry with a grimy cloth. It threw me off a bit.
Selection: On this front, I have no complaints. The bar had a huge variety of bottles behind the bar, and far more on the shelves for purchase. Particularly for Islay scotches, my favorites, I saw 4-5 varieties of Kilchoman, several bottles of Octomore, and the usual strong selection of Laphroaig, Lagavulin, and Ardbeg. Overall, Milroy's focused on scotch, but not to the exclusion of a respectable bourbon and rye selection as well. Like any whiskey bar, Milroy's won't have everything a person could want, but it was well-stocked to have something within everyone's taste profile and price point. Milroy's also had far more independent bottlings of scotch than I typically see, even in high-end bars.
Rare Bottles: Milroy's had one of the strongest rare bottle collections I've seen. The only downside was that I didn't see (or wasn't given) a menu listing everything they had, so couldn't fully appreciate or gauge the breadth of their selection. Another patron did point out to us several bottles of Port Ellen, the defunct Islay distillery whose last remaining bottles -- consisting of liquor distilled in the early 1980s -- sell for thousands of dollars. The bar even had a bottle of Michter's 25 Rye, which one can see listed here for a whopping $7,000. So, yeah, if you're looking to try something unusual or a gem that you may never see again, Milroy's will have something for you. On the shelves, there are even rarer bottles, including several 70s-era Ardbegs worth thousands of pounds. The bottles were so old that I could actually see the discoloration and fraying of aging affecting the labels. Wow.
Value: Actually, this place was pretty reasonable for London. I got a 1 oz pour of Port Charlotte Scottish Barley for 7 pounds, which is not a bad price. Again, since I didn't see a menu, I wasn't able to figure out how reasonable the prices for their high-end selections were.
***
Ultimately, I hesitate to recommend Milroy's for a drink. I found it a little too hectic, and the service a bit slow. I also got a queasy feeling from seeing how the glasses were being cleaned. That being said, if you're in the market for a bottle, it would be hard to beat the selection of rare scotch at Milroy's, so it could be a great place to stop by earlier in the day.