Forget the traditional cocktail menu. At Shrink’s Office in Prague, you don’t choose your drink based on its ingredients or whether you fancy a sour, a highball or an Old Fashioned. Instead, you’re presented with ink blots, numbers and stories designed to make you think. Only once you’ve made up your mind will you find out what you’re actually going to drink.
Stepping into Shrink’s Office means accepting the rules of the game for a moment. This isn’t a bar that wants to reveal everything to you at first glance. Quite the opposite. Its concept is based on psychology, mystery and curiosity, and it draws inspiration from the Rorschach test – the inkblots into which each person projects their own meanings. Instead of a traditional menu, guests are given a list of numbers. There are currently ten signature cocktails on the menu, labelled as INKBLOTS, plus five non-alcoholic options. Each costs 325 or 285 crowns, respectively. You won’t know in advance exactly what lies behind each number. And that is precisely the essence of the whole concept.
Shrink’s Office is part of the AnonymouS Concept and has been operating in Prague since 2016. Over that time, it has developed a highly distinctive style that lies somewhere between a cocktail bar, a psychological game and a small theatre. The name is no coincidence: “shrink” is a colloquial English term for a psychotherapist. Guests thus find themselves in a sort of unofficial consulting room, where instead of a conversation they’re served a drink—and instead of a diagnosis, perhaps a question they’re meant to ask themselves.
Four drinks, four moods
Of course, we didn’t work our way through the entire menu during our visit. We chose four cocktails which, in our view, illustrate well the direction in which Shrink’s Office is currently heading. Tadeáš, who is looking after us, starts with drink number two, called “Loneliness”. The base is Bobby’s Schiedam Dry Gin, complemented by Jägermeister Orange, yuzu liqueur and yuzu-infused black tea. The result is a sweet-and-sour profile with a subtle umami character. The ingredients are distinctive enough on their own, but more important than the list of ingredients is the way they work together. “Samota” isn’t melancholic here. It’s a bit unusual, slightly unexpected and, precisely because of that, very memorable.
The second cocktail is much more aromatic and, at the same time, lighter. Hendrick’s Grand Cabaret and Santa Ana Gin are complemented by orange blossom cordial and champagne. Aloe vera is also added to the drink—dramatically, from a syringe, coloured black. At first glance, it’s a detail that almost looks like a prop, but it’s precisely such little touches that make the service at Shrink’s Office part of the story itself. The drink is refreshing, sweet and sour, and gently sparkling, whilst the floral aromas linger on the palate long after the last sip.
The third cocktail delves deeper in flavour. Smoky Monkey Shoulder whisky is complemented by a homemade yellow melon liqueur and sumac tincture, topped with red wine foam. It is slightly smoky, a little tart and considerably more robust than the previous two. It is here that it becomes clear that the Shrink’s Office concept is not based solely on showy ingredients. The smokiness, tartness, sweetness of the melon and fruitiness of the red wine are arranged so that the individual layers are gradually revealed.
And then comes the bestseller: a cocktail based on citrus vodka, grapes in the form of verjus and Viney syrup, complemented by black pepper. The sweet-and-sour base takes on a slightly spicy finish, reaffirming that Shrink’s Office can take something intimately familiar and shift it in an unexpected direction. In this case, however, the story is perhaps even more interesting than the recipe itself. The theme is a letter from home: the aroma of citrus vodka and Pálava wine infused with pepper, the sweetness of clarified grape juice, and a memory of a loved one. The cocktail is thus not merely a combination of flavours, but a conveyor of mood.
When a cocktail is more than just a cocktail
This is precisely where Shrink’s Office goes beyond the boundaries of a standard cocktail bar. In today’s world of high-end mixology, simply mixing a drink well is, of course, no longer enough. Bars work with fermentation, clarification, homemade infusions, unexpected textures and spectacular presentation. But Shrink’s Office adds yet another layer: it allows the guest to become part of the story.
The inspiration drawn from the Rorschach test is particularly apt in this regard. When you look at an inkblot, there is no single correct answer. Similarly, there is no correct answer to the question of which cocktail you should order. The number you choose might be a matter of chance. You might be drawn to a story you’ve glimpsed somewhere. Or it might simply be intuition. And because you don’t know the ingredients in advance, the barman takes over part of the decision-making. Guests must therefore let go of control over the outcome for a moment and allow themselves to be surprised.
It’s a simple principle, but it works exceptionally well. It also explains why it would be a shame to judge Shrink’s Office solely on the basis of individual recipes. “Samota”, an aromatic cocktail with Hendrick’s Grand Cabaret and champagne; a smoky whisky with melon; or the bestseller with grapes and black pepper are, of course, first and foremost well-crafted drinks. However, their true value only emerges when combined with the way they are presented and the story behind them.
In this respect, Shrink’s Office offers something that’s hard to find in Prague. It doesn’t set out to be just another place where you can enjoy an excellent Negroni or Martini. It creates a world of its own and invites guests to step into it, if only for a moment. Perhaps you’ll take away a specific flavour, or perhaps the story behind a particular cocktail. And perhaps, after that final sip, you’ll ask yourself a question you hadn’t even anticipated.
Because at Shrink’s Office, the most interesting thing isn’t what you’re drinking. It’s the question of why you chose this particular drink.
