Still humbled by the phenomenal response to the legal cocktail competition, Obiter’s representatives on earth (the Gazette editorial team) set out to test the winning cocktails as promised.

Readers will remember that there were three winners - Rumpole’s Baileys and Kahlua, Legal Secs on the Beach, and the MOJ-ito. Initially, service at a French cocktail bar on Chancery Lane was a little too authentically Gallic, with the mixologist refusing to attempt an interpretation of ‘Legal Secs’ (apologies to Sue Porter). He did though accept instructions for the Rumpole’s Baileys (some amaretto was added on his advice), and the MOJ-ito (interpreted as including mint, rosé wine rather than the usual white rum, with grenadine, lemon juice and lychee liqueur).

Obiter is assured both were pretty good - the coffee/Kahlua element in the Rumpole’s Baileys being just the thing to help any solicitor- advocate deliver closing arguments of clear brilliance. The MOJ-ito, meanwhile, ‘tasted like a branch of Crabtree & Evelyn, but in a good way’.

Both, then, recommended. But it came down to this - at the Ministry of Justice no one could imagine ale-loving justice secretary Kenneth Clarke with the MOJ-ito; and as minister of state Lord McNally has famously not touched a drop for years, the long-suffering Jonathan Djanogly would be the only minister drinking (unless the permanent secretary could be roped in).

So Rumpole’s Baileys, by Estella Brown, takes first place with wider appeal among its target audience.