Copenhagen, in Five Bars

We went to Copenhagen in the quiet week after the summer season, with no events, no van and no reason to be up before ten. Four days, two brothers, a list of bars longer than was sensible. This is what we drank and what came home with us.

The first thing you notice is how little anyone is trying. Not in the work, which is as precise as anywhere we have been, but in the room. Nobody shouts the menu at you. The lights are low, the glassware is plain and heavy, and the drinks arrive without a speech. It took us an evening to stop looking for the theatre and start tasting.

Ruby, in a townhouse by the canal, is the one everybody tells you about and for once everybody is right. We sat upstairs in what felt like somebody's drawing room and had a drink built on aquavit, dill and a clear, bright acidity we could not place. The bartender told us it was gooseberry. We have been chasing it since.

Lidkoeb, out in Vesterbro, is in an old pharmacy down a courtyard, and the whisky bar on the top floor is the kind of room you plan a second trip around. Downstairs we had a sour made with Danish rye and brown butter that should not have worked and did.

Duck and Cover, a basement a few streets away with furniture that belongs in a museum, served the best Martini of the trip. Very cold, very dry, a twist, nothing else. We have made several thousand Martinis between us and still took notes.

Brønnum, beside the Royal Theatre, is grander, and the sea buckthorn drink there is the one we talked about on the plane. Sharp, orange, almost savoury, with a salt rim that made the whole thing taste of the coast.

And Balderdash, in the old town, where the drinks are playful and the staff are more serious than the menu lets on. We stayed longer than planned.

Aquavit everywhere, treated as seriously as gin and used in the same places. Dill, fennel and caraway as garnish rather than novelty. Sea buckthorn, which grows along the Danish coast and tastes like a passion fruit that has read a lot of books. Dried citrus wheels instead of fresh, for the look and because they do not go limp in the glass. Smaller menus than ours, usually eight drinks, and nobody apologising for it.

Three things, so far. An aquavit highball with dill and a dried lime wheel, which is on the autumn menu under a name we are still arguing about. A salt rim on anything with sea buckthorn or passion fruit, because it was right every time. And a rule we have started applying to our own event menus: if a drink needs explaining, it is not ready.

We also came home with two bottles of aquavit in the hold luggage and a strong feeling that our Martinis could be colder. Both have been dealt with.

Next trip is Lisbon, probably in February, when the season is quiet again and nobody needs a bar built in a field.