I have frequented many a gentlemen’s denizen and private club in my time, each with its own distinct flavour and cut. Some emit a masculine note: the nostalgic whiff of a particular public school; of matron, Macon and spotted dick. Some reek of sleaze and sensual misadventure, of booze-fuelled liaisons and time-served radicals. Each purveys its own distinctive flavour of charm and succour.

Let us venture forth on a nostalgic tour of London’s most memorable members’ clubs as we make our way to the offbeat booze traders' best-kept secret. Make no mistake, magic still exists on the lists of London’s eccentric drinking clubs if you know where to look.

In the early 90s, the Savile Club on Brook Street averted bankruptcy by the skin of its penurious teeth. A fairly fusty affair when first I graced its hearth, the club had clearly fallen on hard times. Whilst the Groucho Club hummed with the distinctive, well-paid tones of Janet Street-Porter, Jools Holland, Oasis and Blur, The Savile could only counter with drab brown Windsor soup and libidinous salty uncles. Boasting London’s finest full set of rooms in the grand French style — not to mention Yeats, Hardy, Waugh and Kipling as past members — it still held the distant scent of past grandeur, but it was clear from the cut of the bibulous butler pushing the pudding trolley that times were hard.

I was the regular guest of a certain political editor there, whose fat expense account kept a number of impecunious MPs and me in buttery Chardonnay and rubbery red mullet — the 90s dish du jour. It was a generous bequest by a deceased member that saved the day. Sir James Alan Barlow was a collector of Islamic and Chinese art. His 1954 donation of 17th-century Iznic pottery had graced the Savile walls for years. A single side plate from the Barlow Collection sold for £72,000 in 2005. Today, the Savile offers a wonderful cellar with minimal markups. Members can enjoy a bottle of Rivetto Barolo Serralunga 2019 for less than it costs in the shops. They may wish to raise a glass to Sir James when they do.

The infamous Colony Room in Soho was a very different affair. Fetid, sticky, and pungent — yet lifted by the iridescent life force of the artists who lurked there. This one-room space on the first floor of a Georgian terrace on Dean Street was a camera obscura through which was glimpsed a frenetic form of beautiful chaos. I believe the sticky green carpet and malodorous funk could only be navigated intoxicated. Membership implied an affinity with eccentricity and an open acceptance of all. The club’s ultimate owner, Michael Wojas, was a long-standing barman who’d been left the place by the former owner, Ian Board, who’d inherited the club from original owner, Murial Belcher. Belcher paid Francis Bacon to bring in punters, encouraging a permissive air which always remained. When I visited in the 90s, Michael’s ‘cellar’ consisted of whatever the Brewer St Co-op had on offer at the time. And yet the bonhomie was unforgettable. A Lou Reed-flavoured commune of sorts that fostered lifelong friendships amongst its characterful patrons.

The Garrick Club on Garrick Street is a large Italianate palazzo built to order in 1864 for the very purpose it is used today. Soaked in cash thanks to former member AA Milne’s bequest of a quarter share of the royalties from Winnie the Pooh, the club is dripping in honey-scented lucre. It’s famed for the ludicrous pantomime of poncery that joining entails to keep candidate calibre high. Bankrupts, bores and disreputable individuals need not apply, though they’ve had a few in their time. Once a candidate is proposed and seconded they must garner the signatures of as many members as they might muster. I heard tell of the ‘Candidates Book’, a sort of Spotlight for would-be members. Even after the proposal, the process can take years to reach fruition, a torturous experience for the wannabe high-status luvvie. The club has famously voted to admit women, which may considerably alter the membership process.

The place is rammed with QCs whenever I go. There is a wonderful tradition of sitting to eat together on long trestle tables in the Coffee Room — but accompanied women are subtly ushered to side tables with their charge. The place is stuffed full of art and has a wonderful library. It’s colourful, grand, and theatrical, which is perfect for a palace conceived to further the arts. The cellar is, of course, magnificent, but I have not seen it. The iron-willed cockney-Italian sommelier is as rich in character as the building itself; I was unable to infiltrate the bins. Well-priced bottles litter a list heavy in Claret and Burgundy; some members house their own wines in the cellar, which must be extraordinary.

The recent demise of The House of St Barnabas at 22 Soho Square is a sorry tale. Once home to slave owner William Beckford, twice Lord Mayor of London, and the improbable author of the Liberty frieze that remains emblazoned on its front. Beckford was an anti-abolitionist but commissioned the work to mark the release of radical liberal John Wilkes from prison in 1770. On his death, 22 Soho Square became The Dispensary for the Relief of the Infant Poor: a seedling of the NHS, then a charitable hostel. In a move to maximise the building’s potential, The House of St Barnabas was born in 2013. The venue offered hospitality training to over 300 homeless people in ten years. A noble institution with the most beautiful garden and a chapel out back, rendered insolvent by Covid and a collapsed historic ceiling. The wine list was limited, the service idiosyncratic, but you always felt you were amongst friends. There were a good few bottles for under thirty pounds, which was astonishing for such a gorgeous, unique location; it was one of London's most magical inclusive spaces and is greatly missed.

And now we venture to the ultimate wine wankers treasure house, replete with a wank bank of bottles so multitudinous and grand, even a prince might be humbled by the vintages on offer. Oswald’s is a wine club, as distinct from a members club, 5 Hertford Street is a members club with an excellent list and a food focus, the two are very different. Oswald’s wine list is a wine wet dream, a who’s who of the greatest and the established best - it’s Burgundy heavy but nimble, too. I spoke to a former employee who recounted the pleasure of being invited to partake in the La Tache they’d helped a member select. This kind of democratic thinking enriches what otherwise could be the cogitating Claret bore’s Eden. The last time I visited, they had only one English, but this has likely changed. You could certainly judge a wine’s entry into the pantheon of iconic greats by its arrival on the Oswald’s list.

It is important to remember that the wine list reflects the status of the members and their tastes. I can’t imagine natural wine or flor-aged English Ortega making much headway here. The core is undoubtedly old school and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Laflaive flavoured. House wines are served from magnums and prices keen; you can bet they get their pick of allocations. Ossie Wine director Tim Parkinson has worked for owner Robin Birley since 2005; he managed the lists for 5 Hertford Street and Annabel’s, too, so it’s fair to say he knows what he’s doing.

Robin Birley and Mark Birley, his father, had a famously difficult relationship. Since 2007 Annabel’s has been owned by Richard Caring, and was closed in its old basement spot on Berkeley square in 2018 and moved a few doors down to a gargantuan glittering townhouse, complete with courtyard garden, photogenic pink ‘powder rooms’, and velveteen dungeons down below. Today the press focus is on the rumoured rivalry between Robin Birley and Caring. Annabel’s nowadays is a very different place to the Birley-run joints. If the by-word for Oswald’s is discretion, at the new Annabel's it's more about more. The last time I visited, it was like entering an upmarket Amsterdam sex street or walking into Instagram — complete with a live diorama of posers. Everyone had a pitch, and they were all putting them out there at once. I prefer fewer twats with my champagne if I’m honest.

Finally, we move to a place that has evolved into the wine trade’s best-kept secret. The Academy Club above Andrew Edmunds on Lexington Street in Soho is not given to publicity. It’s not really given to anything much. Members are not courted, there are no events, it doesn’t open on weekends, and it's not somewhere you go to be seen. The club code is secret, as is the member’s list, but I can tell you about the man who created it. And I can assure you it’s the finest drinking club in London.

Andrew Edmunds believed fine wines were overpriced. He refused to operate on a standard 400% markup. Wines at The Academy and his restaurant are sold for the price they cost him, plus corkage and VAT. Andrew didn’t see the sense in having expensive wines on a list gathering dust. He felt it outrageous for restaurants to multiply by 4 and put tax on top. He understood that paying through the nose was unlikely to elicit pleasure. His lists eschewed wine that he classed as ‘Parkerized,’ (a reference to market-moving wine critic Robert Parker), dropping a rare, sought-after allocation of Harlan Estate when prices got silly, (A bottle of Harlan Estate Proprietary red 2018 is featured in the Harvey Nichols Sale today at £1,295.00 down from £1,850.00). Andrew never believed the hype. Above all else, he felt good wine should be accessible.

On scanning the Andrew Edmunds list (available at The Academy) my eyes popped out when I saw a Domaine de la Grange des Pères Blanc 2013. The winemaker responsible, Laurent Vaillé, died at the age of 57 in 2021, and his wines are almost impossible to find, with white being the rarest of the lot. Vaillé farmed his diminutive 10-hectares biodynamically and he only planted a single hectare of Roussanne, Marsanne and Chardonnay. His farm was just down the road from Mas du Daumas Gassac in the Languedoc, the most underrated region in France.

I really love wines that have been aged under flor like Fino sherry or Vin Jaune from the Jura, which lies between Burgundy and Switzerland. The Jura is definitely experiencing a fashion moment - even featuring on the latest feared Master of Wine blind tasting exam. looking at Andrew’s list, I rather fancy Domaine du Pelican Savagnin ‘Ouille’ from the Jura. Savagnin is often deliciously aged under flor, but in this case, the ‘ouille’ signifies a lack of oxidation, the barrels having been perpetually refilled to the brim and topped up to deter flor. I imagine a fresh fruit forward salty sup to spring forth from this bottle, all I need to do is buy it. £47.50 on The Academy list.

The Academy was originally formed by Auberon Waugh, Evelyn’s eldest son, but when Bron (not Ron) needed new premises, having been turfed out by The Literary Review, he came to Andrew. The Academy Club on Lexington Street is a magical spot where time and prices have, to some extent, stood still, and social media is forgotten. Housed in an early Georgian block, purchased back when Soho was affordable, the club can be reached by navigating a darkened, Dickensian staircase that ports the seeker back in time to a book-lined wainscoted first-floor drawing room of considerable charm. The place has the vaguely intellectual air of a 17th-century coffee house painted in ‘tobacco’ cream. Members may order from the restaurant list and blackboard; there is also a separate list for the club. Sit in the front of the restaurant, and you are sure to spy the odd member popping in to see what’s on the board before navigating the wonky stairs.

Andrew Edmunds was educated at the Quaker School in Saffron Walden, and though he was clearly no bible basher, the five tenets of Quakerism — simplicity, peace, equality, integrity, and stewardship — are evident in the very fabric of the club. Without orchestration, a disparate collection of bohemian oddbods mesh nightly within its walls as though soothed by some secret narcotic. The Academy has evolved into a bolthole for offbeat wine people, but it is so much more than that. Andrew Edmunds died in 2022, yet the restaurant and club live on thanks to the brilliance and grace of long-standing staff, who, as custodians, seek to change nothing. It’s as if ‘A.E.’ were still a fixture, pottering just out of sight in one of the club’s hazy nooks, quietly entertaining a member with tales of outré 60s London, or sharing a glass of his latest liquid find with a spellbound ingénue.