Unmissable Tales on Tour 2017 events

It’s time to pack your bag and head to Scotland as the world’s largest cocktail festival, Tales of the Cocktail, prepares to land in Edinburgh.

Tales on Tour will take place in Edinburgh next week

As the seventh city to host the Tales On Tour roadshow, Edinburgh’s burgeoning cocktail scene is the perfect fit for the format – providing a key opportunity for bartenders, ambassadors, brand owners, distributors and stakeholders to meet, mingle and make lasting professional relationships.

Throughout the festival (1-5 April) there are plenty of options to tickle your tastebuds, from boozy breakfasts to sustainability seminars, with a host of notable faces on hand to share their wisdom and offer up some food for thought.

The Spirits Business has picked out a few of the key seminars, sessions and events that will be on offer over the festival, although this is just a tiny amount of the excellence that you can attend. For more information and a full schedule, be sure to check out their website.

Click through the following pages for SB‘s top Tales on Tour events, seminars and parties. 

Saturday 1 April

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society Presents – A Dynamic Duo of Past and Present Whisky Making and Shaking
Kaleidoscope Whisky Bar, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society
9:30pm – 11:30pm
Scotland is, naturally, the best place to talk about whisky and the über-location for this must be The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, home of the single cask. The event will showcase the evolution of whisky distilling over the last 50 years, and provide samples of single cask malts. Two specially-crafted whisky cocktails will be created using spirit from the same distillery but with a distinct variety of flavour.

Darnley’s Gin Dynamic Duo of Cocktails X Butchery
Chop House Market Street, Chop House Market Street
10:00pm – 12:00am
For those who love to eat while they drink, Darnley’s Gin has partnered with Chop House to create a bar x butchery, inviting you to experience a combination of a specially curated menu of gin sippers while sampling the best British beef. Andy O’Neill, bartender at Glasgow’s Porter & Rye, famous for premium dry-aged beef, served alongside the city’s best cocktail collection.

Sunday 2 April

Scottish Flavour Makers
Ballroom, The Assembly Rooms
4:00pm – 6:00pm
Scotland might be famous for Scotch whisky, but that isn’t the only spirit that calls the country home. At this event, all the region’s flavours will be celebrated, as well as the people behind them. Bartenders will be providing straight spirits, as well as crafting “unique” cocktails to give guests a taste of liquid Scotland. The event features Black Bottle Whisky, Crossbill Gin, Jura, 18.21 Bitters and Aberlour, among others.

Upcycling and the Art of Bar Sustainability Dynamic Duo with Jack Daniel’s
Lucky Liquor, Lucky Liquor
10:30pm – 12:30am
In these days of eco-concern and recycling, it’s important to not be wasteful. Jack Daniel’s has paired up with the teams from Lucky Liquor Co, Edinburgh and The Gibson, London, to present an evening of zero waste bartending.

Sippin’ on Gin and Juice Dynamic Duo with Bombay Sapphire
TBC
11:00pm – 1:00am
Titi and Christophe from Le Calbar, Paris, the Bramble team and Bombay Sapphire have joined forces to put a French spin on a combination of classic hip hop and classic cocktails.

Monday 3 April

Going Back to Your Roots to Find Success
Ballroom, The Assembly Rooms
10:30am – 12:00pm
The bar industry seems to be awash with people who’ve come from other professions, lookng for excitement, fun and, yes, ready cash. However, it seems that once people get the bartending bug, they have a tendency to deny the past and focus on creating something new, but more often than not they don’t notice that the road to success lies in what attracted them to the role in the first place. This seminar speaks to three of the best known bartender-turned-business-people about how they navigated their way through the industry. The speakers include Jim Meehan and Ryan Chetiyawardana, and the seminar will encourage bar owners to see the talents lurking dormant in their staff that can improve their business.

#instadram – The Benefits of Drinking Shots
Music Hall, The Assembly Rooms
1:30pm – 3:00pm
There are many things that can sell a cocktail – techniques, glassware, ice, flavour balance, creativity – but these days a good photograph can go a long way too. Glossy images can make your cocktails “pop”, and have a real positive impact on presenting your brand. With a team of experts in the areas of bartending, photography, cocktail creation and service rituals, there will be tips and tricks up for grabs. The seminar will be presented by Max Warner and Addie Chinn, with Alex Kratena, Agostino Perrone, Alastair Burgess and Tara Garnell.

Guilty Pleasure
Music Hall, The Assembly Rooms
4:30pm – 6:00pm
Humans have been drinking for millennia and some even believe it’s what caused us to become intelligent. But what if, along with hunger, thirst and sex, we are motivated by intoxication? This seminar, presented by Claire Smith Warner, will answer all the important questions about our desire to drink. What makes us seek out a glass of wine? Does nature or nurture determine the drinks we love and hate? Is the pleasure of drinking really that primal? And what exactly is alcohol’s universal appeal?

Pickling and Preservation – Scandi style in Scotland Dynamic Duo with Patrón Tequila
Voyage of Buck, Voyage of Buck
10:00pm – 12:00am
Award winning bartender Jimmy Hulth of Tjoget, Stockholm will be at Voyage of Buck to bring together Scottish and Scandinavian flavours in a menu of unique Patrón cocktails.

Monkey Shoulder – Lazy Old Fashioned Party
OX184, OX184
11:00pm – 1:00am
In what promises to be one of the more relaxing events on the schedule, Monkey Shoulder will be producing the cocktail using its own Gorilla batched “Lazy Old Fashioned”. They will attempt to demystify malt whisky while letting you put your feet up and relax with this 200-year-old drink, Don Draper style. Dressing gowns are, apparently, optional.

Tuesday 4 April

Auchentoshan presents ‘A Scotch Breakfast’
East Drawing Room, The Assembly Rooms
9:00am – 10:30am
In a chance to learn more about the Glaswegian malt, Auchentoshan will be hosting a breakfast session where guests can try their signature Auchentoshan & Ale alongside some Scottish treats. As the only scotch whisky to triple distil every single drop for an approachable but deep taste, this is definitely worth getting out of bed for.

Drambusters: Why Scotch Belongs in Cocktails
Music Hall, The Assembly Rooms
10:30am – 12:00pm
It’s said that we’re currently in the second “Golden Age” of cocktails, with the drinks available the world over in any flavour, colour, size and with almost any spirit you could imagine. Scotch whisky, however, seems to have rather missed out on the party. Despite playing a significant role in the creation of cocktail culture (just look at the Highball and the Toddy), the well ran dry with the advent of Prohibition. Mike Aikman of Edinburgh’s Bramble Bar, award winning bartenders Ryan Chetiyawardana and Tom Walker, and whisky aficionado Georgie Bell of John Dewar and Sons will together explore the world of the scotch whisky cocktail, looking at cocktails forgotten to history, learning which ingredients match up best, and wondering if whisky is just seen as too precious to be mixed with lesser drinks.

Liquipedia
Music Hall, The Assembly Rooms
1:30pm – 3:00pm
Tristan Stephenson, Jake Burger, Jeffrey Kluger and Matt Pomeroy band together for Liquipedia, a 90-minute session that intends to answer 90 burning questions about alcohol. Why isn’t bread alcoholic? Why is Campari red? What’s actually in Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane Mix? Eighty questions will be pre-prepared and all four of the panel but approve of the answer before they can move on, but as the time ticks down, they will also have to answer 10 questions from the audience, to really add to the challenge. Can they get through every question, or will they pull up short?

Small Fish in a Big Pond
Ballroom, The Assembly Rooms
4:30pm – 6:00pm
Edinburgh’s cocktail culture has bloomed, but how did it maintain that culture and continue to progress? Local legends have the answers. This seminar will bring together Andy Gemmell, founder of Drink Cabinet, Craig Harper of Fever Tree UK, fabled bartender Stu McCluskey, and Mike Aikman, co-owner of Bramble, to tell the truth behind the UK’s second cocktail city. Find out what lengths bars and bartenders must go to to keep this reputation and outshine London, how to punch above your weight, and how to stay true to your ideals.

Trash Tiki
The Last Word Saloon, The Last Word Saloon
7:00pm – 10:00pm
Ian Griffiths and Kelsey Ramage of Trash Tiki are turning The Last Word Saloon into a “punk rock, tiki trip” with cocktails created with ingredients that were on their way to the bin. Using rescued ingredients like juicing pulp and coffee grains, the two will spin them into extreme Tiki drinks. There will also be a guest chef alongside preparing Polynesian bar snacks, similarly made from would-be waste ingredients, but their identity remains a closely guarded secret…

Ryenamic Duo: Kyrö Distillery X The Bon Vivant
The Bon Vivant, The Bon Vivant
9:30pm – 11:30pm
The Finns and the Scots have a surprising amount in common. They have spicy characters, hardy natures and they adore strong spirits. Kyrö Distillery Company, the world’s northernmost all rye distillery, has partnered with popular Edinburgh bar, The Bon Vivant. After a session at the distillery, a special drink will be served that has been created to blend the best flavours these two nations have to offer. Serving the drinks will be Bon Vivant’s own Will Cox, and Kyrö Distillery’s Pauliina Marjanen.

Wednesday 5 April

Hendrick’s Departure Lounge
Voodoo Rooms, Voodoo Rooms
9:00am – 3:00pm
All good things must come to an end, but if you want to eke out as much enjoyment as you can from the festival, then book a place in Hendrick’s Departure Lounge. After a chain of innovative therapies, treatments and polite diversions, you will be taking off to the airport feeling refreshed and invigorated.

Across the Irish Sea: Dead Rabbit x Bramble
Bramble, Bramble
10:30pm – 12:30am
For one night only, Dead Rabbit is coming to Scotland. Teaming up with Bramble, they will be showing off original single malt creations featuring Ardbeg & Glenmorangie.

Hendrick’s Gin Distillery Open Day
Hendrick’s Gin Distillery, Girvan, Aryshire
All day
If you’re not quite ready to head home, you can always embark on a journey to the Hendrick’s Distillery in Girvan, Ayrshire. Although highly irregular, the coach excursion will take in the seaside resort of Girvan, and then take guests to Hendrick’s HQ to uncover the unusual assemblage of processes and equipment involved in the making of the gin. Lunch and what is dubbed only as “peculiar entertainment” will be provided, with the hope so returning by tea time. Tickets for this one must be booked in advance, so make sure you don’t miss out!