Register of Members' Interests: Boardwalk Empire promo night

Before Christmas I went to an event to promote the Boardwalk Empire season one DVD and Blu-ray release, where I was given some free food and drink. Then I chose Boardwalk Empire as number one in our Top 20 shows of 2011. Wait, this looks bad, doesn't it?

In the interests of full disclosure I think it only proper that I present a Register of Members' Interests so you can decide for yourselves whether you consider me a corrupt, cocktail-swilling freeloader who promotes shows because a PR company gave him free stuff. I'm not, I promise. But please give me free stuff if you have any lying around. I like Milky Ways, for example.

The event was at The Nightjar near Old Street (that's up London, for all you non-hipsters), which is a classy basement cocktail bar done up for the night like a 1920s speakeasy. While Nucky wasn't there, nor, I'm relieved to say, Richard Harrow (would've just been awkward: how do you hold a conversation with the guy without saying "So what's with the half-a-face thing?"), there was an awesome 20s-style band and a pair of dancers doing ... I want to say the Charleston?

This sort of carry-on, anyway.

The bar manager, who I am informed is an expert mixologist (he studied under Sir Mix-a-Lot), then gave us a quick talk about Prohibition in the 1920s and invited us to try a rye whiskey from, I think, 1865. Now I can't pretend that whiskey tastes like anything other than paint to me, but the guy had made pretty clear that this was a big deal, so I gave it a go. It tasted less like paint than the other whiskey I have drunk in my life. Thumbs-up, 1865! Good year!

The cocktails made with the rye were very good indeed, though. They all had names like 'Bootlegger's Secret' and 'Atlantic City Sour', which I promptly forgot and resorted to asking the waitress for "another red one, please".

I spilled so little of this on myself you wouldn't have even noticed.

Next we were given a screening of one of the extra features off the DVD, a tour around some of New York and Chicago's former speakeasies with the guys who play Lucky Luciano, Johnny Torrio and Arnold Rothstein. Apparently Stephen Graham offered to show the camera crew round the King's Arms in Birkenhead but was politely refused.

That's all I was given, I promise. Have I prostituted myself to HBO? Well, that's for you to decide. All I know is, I can look myself in the mirror. It's a really expensive Boardwalk Empire-branded mirror that they gave me.
Boardwalk Empire season one is out on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday 9th January. Thanks to Premier PR for the invite and the pictures, none of which I have the skill or equipment to take myself.