There are drinks you sip and swill and ponder on, and others that you shoot to the back of your neck like a starting pistol. Tony Conigliaro is a master of them all. Conigliaro is not a mixologist (his face, when I say the word, twists painfully) and, despite being described as the Heston Blumenthal of drinks, he's certainly not a molecular mixologist (face like he's being booted by a very large man in very small boots). He's a barman. He's probably the best barman in the world.

An evening at the Zetter Townhouse in London, one of Conigliaro's two homes, begins typically with an explosion. The Flintlock, a cocktail that contains gunpowder tea tincture, is presented in a bright flash of light – it makes customers gasp, then giggle, then blink repeatedly. It's a really good way to start the night; it's theatre that gets you pissed. You sense Conigliaro has stage managed every sip from then on in.

In person, he's elegant and articulate, with the grace of a late-night lounge singer. He studied art. His work, in his 20s, involved adding perfume to paint, and in this there's a metaphor for him, somewhere. He was 26, working in bars to fund his painting, when he realised that bartending was becoming more than just a job. He cared about it. About alcohol – its roles in perfume and medicine, as well as the history of drinks. And he cared about translating that history into real life. Hence his disgust at the word "mixologist".

Now 40, sitting by the bar at the Zetter Townhouse, he explains: "You can't separate the drink making from the bartending, and you shouldn't try to. It's an art, not a craft." Despite spending much of his week working on new formulas in his lab, the Drink Factory (previously home to Pink Floyd's recording studio), he says: "The science of a cocktail is such a minor part of it. It's about how it looks, tastes, smells. It's about being a host. I hate unsmiling bartenders, and drinks not made with love. We should never foist our ideas on a customer. They should think it's just a drink, and just a bar."

In a time when so many bars are stocked with the kinds of serious barmen who make you listen to the family tree of your negroni before you're allowed to sip, this attitude is refreshing. It's an attitude that Conigliaro has fed through all his projects, including his new recipe book, Drinks, and his original bar 69 Colebrooke Row, which despite deploying smoke guns, centrifuges and water baths, only shows drinkers the cocktails. When they moved into the Zetter, Conigliaro and his team trawled the nearby Regent's Canal for nettles and dandelions, which they distilled and pumped and re-formed into cocktails. This is one bit of what he does that makes him special – working in his grand laboratory with its medical-like stainless steel equipment, the other being the stories he invents.

The Zetter Townhouse is designed to look like it's frozen in the 1800s, its owner a fictional character called Wilhelmina, whose portrait greets you as you enter. This is how their stories work. Their drinks have "internal histories, a theatre within the glass", the most popular of which is the Master at Arms, named after the sailor who was responsible for managing navy rations. "Wilhelmina is travelling all the time – she's never here to host you is she? – and hitches rides with the royal navy," Conigliaro explains, eyebrows wiggling. "So there's your rum ration. But there's a port reduction in there too, which only officers drank. The story is, she was having an affair with the captain." The drink, to be clear, tastes delicious, in its sailor-knotted glass – a flash of grenadine giving a dark, tart glow.

He says we're entering a second golden age of cocktails. Moving away from the sugary drinks so popular in the 1990s for their ability to keep drinkers dancing, and towards something more creative, more thoughtful. A drinking culture that is evolving alongside that of food, an interest in artisanal products and the history of the ingredients. As proof, Conigliaro boasts that he never sees drunken fights in his bars.

"Tony is a revolutionary at the forefront of a new energy in cocktail making," says Heston Blumenthal.

Conigliaro, with his stories and alchemy, and drinks that taste of a futuristic past, sees himself as part of something larger – a movement that is helping to change the way we drink. One cocktail at a time. OFM

The Zetter Townhouse, 49 St John's Square, London EC1V 4JJ; 020 7324 4545; thezettertownhouse.com