London Cocktail Week launches online guide

As London Cocktail Week readies to return next month, the team behind Europe’s largest cocktail festival has created an online guide to bars taking part in the event.

The site, which can be found at DrinkUp.London, offers information on hundreds of London’s top bars, independent reviews, links to suggest nearby venues and an e-shop to purchase tickets for various city events.

Users can also download the DrinkUpLDN app from the new website, which offers live up-to-date information to check how busy bars are, rate venues, follow friends to find out where they’re checked in and a GPS tracker to map your night.

Furthermore, this year’s festival will include a brand new Cocktail Village encompassing the entire Spitalfields Market in East London.

With an itinerary jam-packed with pop-up bars, Europe’s biggest cocktail festival will once again be offering special drinks promotions and parties from 5-11 October.

Overlooking the Cocktail Village will be The House of Angostura pop-up, which will host a party every night with DJs and an array of Angostura cocktails.

Guests will also be able to indulge in the luxury World Class London Cocktail Week Hub at Soho’s Vinyl Factory.

“Having hit record numbers in 2014 with more than 22,000 guests attending the festival, we knew that London Cocktail Week was ready to move to an ever bigger home,” commented Siobhan Payne, festival director of London Cocktail Week. “The London Cocktail Week Village in Old Spitalfields Market and the much bigger World Class London Cocktail Week Hub in Soho is definitely going to take the festival to that next level.”

For consumers keen to discover new watering holes, cocktail tours will once again be available to introduce LCW guests to some of the city’s best bars.

In addition, Bacardi Brown-Forman and Patrón Tequila will host a 24-hour cocktail competition during LCW featuring 24 bartenders from around the world.

Hailing from bars in New York, Paris, Singapore and London, the contestants will go head-to-head in the inaugural contest, called the 24hr Bar Build, which will challenge entrants to create a “cutting edge” new cocktail bar concept inspired by Grey Goose vodka, Bacardi rum, Patrón Tequila and Bombay Sapphire gin.

A panel of judges will then determine which bartender has earned the title of The World’s Best.

Wristbands cost £10 and are available from Londoncocktailweek.com, entitling guests to £5 cocktails at all partner venues.