Anjli Mohindra: 'I ordered half a lager and felt really cool'
The actress, 33, tells Charlotte Vossen about her first bar order, deceptively strong cucumber martinis in the Gherkin and a very convenient cocktail bar
As a child, I loved a fizzy Rubicon Mango. You’d find it in the aisles of Indian or Pakistani food shops. My mum would take me fruit and veg shopping in the South Asian food market in Nottingham on a Sunday, and her way of bribing me to be quiet long enough for her to crack on was to get me a can of Rubicon Sparkling Mango.
When I was 14, my friends and I shared a bottle of Absolut Vodka at a party. My mum picked us up after, and my friend vomited in the back of her car. I said it was food poisoning so she wouldn’t get angry. About a year ago I confessed to my mum that that was the first time I tried alcohol. She was like, ‘Girl, I could smell it.’
The Old Angel in Nottingham is a legendary drinking hole in my friendship circle. It’s the first place I was served a drink – I ordered half a lager and felt really cool. It’s near The Television Workshop, where I trained as an actor, and I met a lot of my friends there who I’m still really close to now.
My first drink of the day is a cacao. I got into them about a year ago, after a yoga class, as an alternative to caffeine. I used to drink a lot of coffee and I’d feel so buzzed I wouldn’t get anything done. A cacao feels like a gentler wake-up. It’s chocolate in its rawest form, and I make it with oat milk and some hot water.
One of the most interesting drinks I’ve ever had was a Cucumber Martini in the Gherkin, celebrating a series called Cucumber that I was in a couple of years ago. I loved it. It was dangerous as it didn’t taste alcoholic, so I had a few – then had trouble exiting the Gherkin. That was a very cucumber-themed moment in my life.
I could live a life without wine. The most excited I’ve been over a bottle was filming a show called Beaver Falls in South Africa. We were staying in Stellenbosch, and I had a glass of a wine called The Chocolate Block, which tasted like dark chocolate. You could knock it back and it felt how I thought wine would taste like as a kid: a version of Ribena with no alcohol; smooth, like a chocolate grape.
Tequila must be in my blood! So having a margarita in Mexico felt quite poetic. I stayed in a resort called Akumal, near Tulum. Sitting on the beach, having a margarita that I think was made with mezcal, so slightly smokier than tequila, I was in heaven.
A margarita in Akumal, Mexico, was Anjli’s idea of heaven. Her first alcoholic drink was Absolut Vodka, but it’s cacao for breakfast
I had drinks with Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore while filming Miss You Already. In one scene, we’re in a bar celebrating Toni Collette’s character’s birthday. The ‘alcohol’ was brown sugar with sparkling water, but it was a real pinch-me moment because I’m a huge fan of both actresses.
There’s an underground wine bar by Clapham Common tube that does the best espresso martinis. It’s an old public lavatory transformed into a cosy cave. It’s called WC Wine & Charcuterie, and it’s really lovely in winter. It feels like a little secret find.
I discovered the Craig David cocktail while quarantining in a hotel room in Prague, before filming the first season of The Lazarus Project. After what felt like three days in solitary, I cracked open a bottle of tequila, poured some into the half-finished bottle of pineapple juice in my fridge and shook it like a cocktail shaker. It made the foamiest beverage – like a Solero ice cream.
I’d love to open a bottle of prosecco with Sophia Duleep Singh. She was a princess who became a suffragette in the 1900s, and is one of the most badass women ever. I haven’t come across any diary entries about her drinking alcohol, but I would love to raise a glass with her and have a nice chat.
I want to say I’d like people to toast me at my funeral with sparkling wine. I think wine can make you melancholic, and I want people to be like, ‘Oh, it’s a shame she’s passed’. But I think it’ll be margaritas because I love them.
The Lazarus Project season 2 is on Sky Max and streaming service Now
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