Birthday Drinks at Thirsty Cambridge

(Not my) birthday drinks at Thirsty Cambridge

I don't do north of the river in Cambridge, especially after dark - the delineations of my world are a curve of the Cam intersected by the railway line.

But a friend's birthday get-together at recently-opened Thirsty Cambridge took me across a literal as well as metaphorical border to Mitcham's Corner.

North-of-the-river Cambridge is a bit like East London - urban, edgy and gentrifying.

As its only wine bar, Thirsty has something of a captive audience. The set-up is simple - long benches, low mark-ups, a range of mostly classic Old World wines and a different mobile street-food van parked outside every night. Plus craft beers on tap.

It all feels rather studenty-shabby, which is presumably why it appealed to a bunch of dressed-down 50-somethings who have aged three decades without quite fully acknowledging it.

In our makeshift 6th form common room, the talk was of second marriages and third careers, of funerals and grandchildren rather than the iconoclasm of radical politics and the world set to rights.

As to the wines, there was an elegant English fizz from Hereford, a bold, spicy red from Vacqueyras and a Langhe Nebbiolo that was a touch cloudy.

A return visit is but a matter of time.

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