41°

A cocktail bar in Sololaki

A tiny bar on Galaktion Tabidze Street, two steps from Freedom Square: the tables seat about twenty-five people, no more. It is the same street as Chaduna and Vino Underground, so the whole bar quarter of the old town fits into one block.

Wine is not the point here, cocktails are: the bar's own, plus chacha and Georgian spirits.

The name comes from the futurists. In 1918 in Tiflis, Aleksei Kruchenykh, the brothers Ilia and Kirill Zdanevich and Igor Terentyev founded the group «41°», which lasted until 1920. The name works twice over: forty-one degrees is both the strength of a drink and the latitude on which Tbilisi stands. The Zdanevich brothers are remembered for something else as well: it was they who found Niko Pirosmani and brought him to the public.