Wednesday Cocktail Adventure: Le Crocodile

Le Crocodile
6 rue Royer-Collard
75005 Paris
Tel: +33 1 43 54 32 37


Over 300 different cocktails! Well, of course, I was curious to check this out. With its dark and dingy interior, graffiti covered tables and cheapish cocktail prices, le Crocodile is the ideal student bar. It's got that dirty-arty-boho feel which appeals to the student desire to sit in dim corners having philosophical conversations. It's got a fairly priced drinks menu appealing to students' nearly always empty wallets. Plus it's located in the Latin quarter not far from the Sorbonne in an unassuming side street just across from Le Pantalon, another popular university hangout.

Apparently one of the barmen who has worked there for the past three years has all of these recipes memorized. And, it's no small feat considering they diverge from standard recipes. Their website is upfront in announcing that cocktail purists will not find their classic cocktail recipes to be traditional. This is indeed the case as evidenced by my Dry Martini:

What's in that stumpy little glass is a mixture of ice cubes, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, sweet and sour mix and gin. I'm not saying it was bad. But, it's nowhere close to a classic martini. I'm all for experimenting, but I just don't really understand why either you don't a. replace a classic with something much better. OR b. name your new invention something else. For my second drink I ordered the Nabab (hot pepper liqueur and champagne.) After two rounds, the most consistent observation on their cocktails from the group was "surprising aftertastes."

Our drinks at the pre-midnight happy hour cost of 6 Euros were fairly priced and fairly boozy. The juices aren't fresh and the recipes are a bit on the crazy side, but I like the fact that they've got just about anything you can imagine flavor-wise. Le Crocodile offers up dozens of different liqueurs from all over the world. I wouldn't head back there for drinks anytime soon, but they are definitely trying to do a cocktail thing that - with a little tweaking - could be cool.