Cocktail culture: The hipper, hipper shakes

Douglas Ankrah, the cocktail supremo behind LAB, is making a stir in London's Knightsbridge. Susan Low meets the arch mixologist

In the inattentive torpor of mid-August, its arrival – later, inevitably, than scheduled – might almost have gone unnoticed. "New bar opens in London. Cocktails served" is not, after all, earth-shattering news. But it looks as though one of the best bars of the year has just opened.

During the past decade, London has gone from being a cocktail toper's Sahara to (arguably) one of the best places on the planet to experience alcoholic alchemy. Cocktail-guzzling barflies can even choose from dedicated bourbon bars, martini bars, tequila bars and sake bars.

Joining this growing band of bars with staying power and a genuine commitment to the art of mixing drinks is the "boutique bar", as Douglas Ankrah describes his new, leather-scented, chocolate-coloured bar, Townhouse. Already, the three-storey Georgian house in (who'd have believed it could become trendy?) Knightsbridge, throbs with a kind of low-slung loungey energy. Strangers flirt, friends gossip and, in the midst of it all, there's the nattily dressed Ankrah, meeting, greeting and grinning.

He has reason to be pleased. At 33 Ankrah is now considered one of the prime players in the London cocktail movement. He follows in the footsteps of Dick Bradsell, whose eponymous Dick's Bar at The Atlantic was the maternity ward for the nascent cocktail craze in the mid-Nineties. Away from the traditional hotel bars known for classic cocktails, mixologists experimented with fruit purées, infused and flavoured alcohols and new-wave Martinis.

Ankrah never imagined he'd become such a cocktail guru when he started working as a bar-back at the Hard Rock Café in Park Lane. You won't find him behind the bar now; he's a consultant – or, as he puts it – "the band manager rather than the singer". He's left his mark on the drinks list at places like Nectar and Akbar, the downstairs bar at the refurbished Indian restaurant Red Fort in Soho, where he introduced lassi-based cocktails using Indian flavourings such as coriander and mango.

"I never planned to open bars," he says. "I didn't even want to be a bartender." But at his next stint at Smollensky's, also in London, "they forced me", he laughs. So, how did he get where he is now? "It's all luck, all about meeting people. But most of all you have to be so ambitious. And creative."

If not for the bar thing, fashion-mad, music-obsessed Ankrah would have liked to have been a fashion designer. Or perhaps a musician. His favoured instrument, the bass guitar, fits with his philosophy of supplying the groundwork, the pace and the rhythm to bars he works with.

Five years ago, Ankrah and two friends, seeing the potential of London as a cocktail capital, started up the London Academy of Bartending to train staff. Although the school went into receivership soon after, they kept the brand and set up a bar called LAB in Soho's Old Compton Street. It was a runaway success. In 2001, Ankrah won the title of "mixologist of the year" for his skills in the annual Bacardi Bar Awards; in 2000, LAB won the Time Out Eating & Drinking Award for Best Bar. The Seventies porn-flick interior and friendly staff were just part of the successful (and much-copied) formula; brilliantly made imaginative cocktails were – and still are – the big story.

Cocktails are the draw at Townhouse, too, where the 100-strong list features classic Collinses, Martinis, Champagne cocktails, juleps and daiquiris, as well as more cutting-edge concoctions. Date-infused Bourbon, raisin-infused rum and tamarind-infused vodka are made on the premises, as are ginger sugar and vanilla sugar. Ingredients like these turn up in unexpected combinations with unusual liqueurs, fresh fruits and fruit juices, crowned with names like Momentum, Date Bourbon Sour and Rich Dog.

Ankrah sees parallels betweens bars and restaurants. "Chefs are very creative – and so are bartenders. To be a good bartender is even more difficult – you have to deal with customers, with cash. We're the first thing that people see when they go to a bar." Yet gaining respect as a barman remains difficult here, unlike in New York where it is a well-respected, well-paid profession. "Here, if you work in a bar, people always ask you when you're going to get a real job; they don't take it very seriously, which is a shame." Ankrah believes that, "right now London is the cocktail capital of the world".

While Townhouse is a one-off, he plans to expand LAB into a global brand. Cape Town was the site of the first LAB bar abroad, and next on the agenda is Basel. Switzerland? Chocolate-and-cuckoo-clocks Switzerland? "I've been there three or four times recently and it is happening," he says. If Ankrah can play a part in turning this once-comatose part of Knightsbridge into hipster heaven, perhaps we'd better believe him.

Townhouse, 31 Beauchamp Place, Knightsbridge, London SW3 (020-7589 5080).