Drinking Etiquette with Mr Dogg.

  Snoop drinking gin in his usual understated manner

The Ladies of the Lane are delighted to say we gained exclusive access to the Doggfather while he was in the UK for Glastonbury. Would we lie to you?* What with hitting 50 and declaring that he has watched Coronation Street for the past 11 years, we're wondering if Snoop still has it and what our good pal** can tell us about gin? Here is the unabridged*** interview script when we ventured inside Snoop's trailer.

Gin Lane 'Ho': Yo Snoop!  We like gin and we hear it's your tipple of choice - any favourite gins?

Snoop: I got me some Seagram's gin

GL: Racey! Would that have anything to do with Miss July?!  Any particular drinking gripes?

Snoop: Everybody got they cups, but they ain't chipped in

GL: Round buying; it is an issue. We would never go to a party and expect to drink for free. Some people have no manners. Apart from Seagram's what do you and your friends drink?

Snoop: My homey Dr. Dre came through with a gang of Tanqueray.

GL: Would that have anything to do with Tanqueray rhyming with his own name?

At this point in the interview there is a stony silence so we change the subject.

GL: Favourite mixer Snoop?

Snoop: Tanqueray and chronic

Tonic surely?! Best not to argue at this stage...

GL: Interesting...

Snoop: Get your ice, get your cups, straight up.

GL: So you're a Martini kind of a man then? Any other tips for our readers?

Snoop: I hit a corner and make sure my drink don't spill.

At this point the interview comes to a close; we are reliably informed Snoop does in fact practice road safety and wasn't driving and was most definitely wearing a seatbelt.

So that's all motherf**kers.

* Yes we most certainly would. Sorry.

** Never met him

*** We obviously took out all references to bitches, hos and and funky ass shit as we don't think swearing is big or clever

Just my ima-gin-ation

It was a normal kind of evening with this lady and her gentleman friend.  We meandered a stretch of the ancient Roman road Watling Street to take in a view privée of intriguing artworks by an artist whose kaleidoscopic influences apparently include Mallarmé's poetry, British zombie movies and 19th century French millitary painting.  Topped off with a few bottles of freebie(r) and a Yemeni supper.  As I said, a normal sort of evening.

We started about the long walk back east-central, pondering the eating habits of Jack Bauer when this lady's well-trained eye was fish-hooked at twenty paces by a certain unmistakable 11-point type word: gin.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mansfield Cryogenics have moved - this is Purl.  A newly opened Victoriana-infused cocktail den nestled a safe distance from the Chardonnay-thirsty hoardes of the City and the Mojito-swigging trendos of the East.  In fact, the only reason I have ever been in this part of town with booze-thirst before, was on another very normal evening of viewing miniature-man-suits in an old fire station, as one does.  My gentleman friend allowed me the honour of buying the drinks, as it was a Tuesday and it was 10pm and and I could sense that he was, in his head, already watching re-runs of 24.  The cocktail menu regularly changes in this joint, as the leaves from the booze tree fall, but on this balmy June eve I plumped for a Negroni and a Clover Club - both masterfully created with two of the fine array of gins available, with ice carved before my very eyes from a glacier (ok ok, a really big block).  We listened to bizarre Charleston-tinged remixes, sat in the bowels of this Marylebone underworld in a little cave all of our own.

The Gin Lane Ladies don't do reviews (not least because other people are, like, well better - see: Yet Another Gin and that naughty Gin Monkey), but if we did, we'd tell you to go to Purl.  And to order the Foul Moudames at The Queen of Sheba.

Statement of Witness: Deliver us from (G)innocence

 The Tasting Session's Flickr Photostream / Jacqueline Chang Photography

SHOREDITCH POLICE DEPARTMENT: TRANSCRIPT OF STATEMENT

Statement of: Gin Lane Ladies

Age: Erm, twenty-something (honest)

Date: 11/05/2010

Location: Shoreditch Town Hall

Lady 1: Look, all I remember is this. I took the 78 bus to Shoreditch Town Hall, where I met one of my trusted Gin Lane companions and entered.  No, not via the main entrance, it was the basement.

Lady 2: We were in this room and the clocks and the pictures on the walls were all sideways, and there were eggs filled with asparagus and duck on sticks and Cazadores Tequila everywhere.

L1: And even a chocolate with a shot of tequila embedded in it.

L2: Yeah that was amazing… but then it got weirder. A funny hairy chap appeared, maybe he was a centaur... Anyway he was holding two apples and babbling about an angry queen. He convinced us to follow him through a cabinet in the wall into a wintery wonderland where we drank the finest Appleton Estate Rum and ate teenie tiny rum-spiked ice creams. Then the hairy fellow led us further into the darkness where we were met Snow White…

L1: Well technically Mr. Snow White. He showed us how not to make apple pies but how to eat the most perfect whiskey chocolates and gave us all a shot of the oakiest whiskey that's ever passed our lips.

L2: As if this weren't enough, next we were led to a room where a wolf kissed a girl and we all drank Meantime beer.  Then we were led into an enchanted forest where gin flavoured chocolates grew in cages from a literary apple tree.

L1: She's right, there was gin everywhere, but not normal gin... this gin was made from apples from the organic cider apples from the fields of Chase Distillery and made the most marvellous mini martinis, and boozy-jelly-worms.

L2: The last thing I remember is snorting some sort of (chocolate) powder in the toilets. I think there was a Big Brother contestant there.

L1: We didn’t want to do it, but they convinced us. It was peer pressure. And I suppose maybe we wanted to look cool.  Look, we're sorry.  Please don't tell our mothers.

L2: I'm sorry officer but we promise we’re telling the truth. Honestly, it was something called the Tasting Sessions: Deliver us from Innocence, cooked up by the ladies who were behind Towards A Fluid State, it’s their fault.

L1: Yeah, and Damian Allsop is the man responsible for all of the chocolates

L2: You should check The Tasting Sessions' website for the next session if you don't believe us.