Review: Russian Standard – all night

I like to think I am a girl who can handle her alcohol. You won’t find me vomming outside the union on a Friday night, or drunkenly sobbing on an unwilling shoulder, or even stuffing my face with doner in Dervish. Oh, Russian Society, how irrevocably changed my life has become. 

In case you missed the memo, there was free vodka for a £20 ticket. All night. The 40s ballroom had sweet beats from B-Sides, and some lovely people giving you all the vodka you could drink, which turned out to be not that much. After two hours someone had already thrown up in a urinal, but this was in fact the only evidence of overindulgence, and overall it was impressive to see how well most people paced themselves (myself, unfortunately, not included).

Was it worth the ticket price? For those of us who arrived on time, I would say certainly, but despite pre-drinking being an absolutely unnecessary affair, the Ballroom did not actually get busy until post-10.30pm when the fashionably late crowd arrived. With a midnight curfew, it seemed like there just wasn’t time for those people to get their money’s worth, despite practically non-existent wait times for most of the night and only a short queue at its busiest.  

Kudos to the staff, who were working extremely hard to fulfill everyone’s orders, and anything went: doubles, triples, even quadruples (error), and shots galore. Although vodka was technically the only thing on the menu, the number of mixers and garnishes provided was impressive. If tonic with a squeeze of lime was your thing, or even the more outlandish choice of tomato juice, they had you covered, with none of that ‘tiny glass’ rubbish you see in so many drinking establishments these days. If I pay for a vodka coke, I don’t want a splash of liquor in a glorified egg cup with a tiny leprechaun straw. Russian Soc treated us to a real, person-sized glass, capable of fitting the full-length bendy straw, of which there were plenty. Since I chipped a front tooth in first year, straws have become a requirement when the drinks are as well-chilled as these were.

I was hoping for traditional Russian music and Cossack dancing with furry hat men, but was a bit disappointed. The music was great as a background vibe, but despite alcoholic lubrication guests were reluctant to get dancing until very late in the evening, and the night just never really seemed to get going. Perhaps things in Ma Bells were a little more lively, named as the place to be after midnight, but shamefully I cannot tell you how successful that was as I was too busy being sick in a bath.

Overall, congrats to the Russian Soc for putting on an excellent value night for those of us who were keen enough to arrive before 9pm. A surprisingly classy event, even without the furry hats.

Headline image courtesy of the Russian Society