A NEW cocktail bar with a twist celebrated with a bumper opening night.

But a little adventure is required to find it.

Trashed Panda is hidden behind a doorway, disguised as a bookshelf, inside Set Restaurant in Regency Square, Brighton.

Jake Goldstein, owner and head barman, has developed his own space to shake and stir his never-ending list of carefully crafted cocktails.

He said: “I always talk about how cocktails should be and what fantastic ingredients can be experimented with.

“Now finally I have this great space to do it all.”

Jake’s cocktails are all about the preparation.

He uses locally sourced ingredients where he can, and being sustainable is “a given”.

He said: “The bar is not your average bar.

“There are no spirit bottles on shelves behind me.

“It’s more like a chef’s kitchen which makes it a bit different.

“You really get out what you put in with cocktails.”

Jake, who used to work at the Plotting Parlour in Steine Street and the Daddy Long Legs in Arundel Road, has a stove and a fermentation corner behind the bar.

This brings more interesting flavours to the mix and allows customers to watch their drinks made from scratch.

He said his list of cocktails will change weekly, depending on the ingredients available and how he feels.

He said: “It will be hard to get bored with the list.

“Drinks will just change with the season and our whims.”

Jake said while Trashed Panda will be mindful of food waste and recycling, he is not going to spell it out to his customers. He said: “A lot of businesses are splashing “sustainable produce” and “locally sourced” everywhere which I think people are eventually going to get fed up with.

“We hear a lot of buzzwords around at the moment – artisan, craft, small batch – and we don’t worry about these things.

“All we care about are simple delicious drinks.”

Trashed Panda only has space for 15 people.

But this works to the advantage of Jake and the drinkers.

He said: “Having a limited amount of space for people means more time to spend on the cocktails.

“And because there won’t be loads of people at one time it means you won’t have to wait too long.”

The name Trashed Panda was chosen because “it’s exotic but silly at the same time”.

He said: “I was originally going to start pop-up cocktail bars, and pop-up made me think of those Panda pops drinks you have as a kid.

“I also love pandas, they are kind of silly and clumsy but unique, rare and an endangered species.”

The new bar opened on Friday.

It serves cocktails Wednesday to Saturday, 5pm until 11pm during the week and until midnight over the weekend.