Remember cocktail pitchers? Big jugs of nonsense, each one a commitment to a noble cause: to live, to laugh, and to love. In all their fizzy reckoning comes the promise of something silly and, last time I checked, silliness is what life is all about. The moment any one of us pauses to deliberate the state of the world, everything seems to crumble. So off we went to Cubana, entirely by mistake, an old-time Latin bar at the foot of the Cut in Waterloo, a strange and transitory part of town less cool, not chic, but fun.
I can’t remember the last time I had a cocktail pitcher. Years ago, when the world felt far simpler. Maybe it was in a branch of that pub chain and the contents was bright red and unforgiving. Or on some beach far away, post-swim, with crab fritters and sandy toes. At Cubana, we ordered mojitos, having been drawn in by a two-for-one deal. Such dramatic offerings are rare, if non-existent in the bars I tend to frequent. Hey ho, an ointment. And who am I — who are you? — to deny a large, ice-filled jug of rum and mint and lime. Most of it was soda water but at a tenner or thereabouts, that’s merely horses for courses.
