On a recent visit to Edinburgh I stumbled across Raconteur, a small new bar that did three very important things: served great drinks, had a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere and had friendly, talented bartenders behind the stick. That’s pretty much my holy trinity of things I like about bars. I could only surmise that this must be a great bar and its progenitors surely destined for fame and fortune.

What strikes me about this converted boozer in a back street of Stockbridge is what a nice place it is to go for a drink. There’s a thoughtful selection of spirits on the elegant back bar and a couple of draught beers. Boozy trinkets in glass cabinets stud the walls and make it a perfect drinking den. More than anything, though, it’s the trio behind the bar: warm, welcoming and very, very good at mixing drinks.

Returning to London I had to consider the potential impediments to these three becoming stars. It’s unlikely that Calum Best will be hosting an eye-wateringly expensive birthday party there, and I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of Girls Aloud, so I’m not going to be much help.

On a respectable bartending blog recently, I read a helpful ‘how-to’ guide to making a name for yourself as a bartender.

In short, it involved hiring a PR company, getting a celebrity into your bar, working up an angle for a public interest story and getting some journos to take note. I looked for the bit about making great drinks and being a consummate host but they seemed to have run out of space for that.

Fame is mere proof that

people are gullible

The supposition for encouraging bartenders to come to London to make it big is that it’s where all the best bars are. Mostly though it’s where the media is, so it’s where the celebrities are. Therefore it’s where your lucky bartender is most likely to wander into the glare of publicity carrying an outlandish chalice of disco booze. To paraphrase the world’s first yuppie poet; the more column inches your bar gets, the better it is.

There are plenty of great bars all over the UK: Leeds, Liverpool, Oxford, Brighton, Manchester, the list goes on. By implication there are many great bartenders working those bars, but there is always a caveat. Maybe the unique hydrostatic pressure in London affects flow rates, or perhaps mixing up a rum and fruit juice for a former member of Blue really is a mixologist’s greatest challenge. Perhaps, though, perception of talent bears little relation to actual ability.

The critical analysis of a great bartender is perilously simple; great drinks, great service, great host. Anything else is just geography. There are, of course, bartenders who have carved their niche and made their name through diligence, hard work and no little talent. But for every Angus Winchester or Mal Evans there are a dozen hacks with a penchant for self-promotion and name-dropping that clutter the industry. Fame is, after all, mere proof that people are gullible.

So Jamie Mac, Nick, Teddy, I salute you. Perhaps Kate Moss will be photographed blearily stepping out of the Raconteur late one night and you will be rocketed to stardom. Until then, keep making great drinks and entertaining guests in your great little bar, and number not the voices but weigh them. To me you’re already celebrities...