When I meet him in Soho he orders my beer slushy before heading for a table covered with some of the most synthetic-looking drinks yet created. As well as WKD and Archers, there are Bacardi Breezers, bottles of Reef (a still alcoholic fruit juice), Smirnoff Ice (two flavours, both of which taste like alcoholic pear drops), and five razzle-dazzle-coloured shot glasses, arranged in a line to look like test tubes in Professor Booze's secret lab.

"They're called Screamers fruity vodka shots. We make them," Hegarty says proudly. I taste my first Screamer. My teeth turn green and the mix is so disgusting I try to scream myself, but the treacly mixture has stuck my tongue to the roof of my mouth. I work it loose with a few crunchy gulps of my beer slushy.