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The week in pictures

The Irish Whiskey Association and Irish Distillers hosted a mentoring event for fledgling brands at the Midleton Distillery last week.

Staff from 15 Irish whiskey distilleries took part in the event which saw globally recognised brands from the world of Irish whiskey offering support and guidance to new brands entering the industry.

Workshops on cooperage and maturation provided new businesses with the opportunity to learn first-hand from experienced craftsmen while practical demonstrations from Irish whiskey leaders offered an insight into the techniques required to create high quality Irish whiskey.

The programme also taught whiskey makers about the importance of wood purchasing, the skills of cooperage, cask handling, and the principles of maturation and blending.

Twenty eight participants from 10 countries competed in the Northern European finals of the Bacardi Legacy Cocktail Competition in Amsterdam this week.

Leon Back from Edinburgh’s Panda & Sons was announced as the UK winner with his drink The Queen Street. He will now go on to compete in the global final in Mexico next year.

Back’s cocktail, The Queen Street, combines Bacardi Carta Blanca with Martini Ambrato, celery bitters, lemon juice, sugar syrup and a spritz of Islay whisky.

The new Clydeside Distillery opened its doors to the public this week and is now producing the first spirit in the area for more than 100 years.

Sitting on the site formerly known as The Queen’s Dock, the distillery includes a visitor centre with interactive whisky experience, shop and café.

Glasgow’s links to the whisky industry have been brought to life through pictures and film as visitors make their way through 140 years of history in the distillery’s visitors centre.

The project to transform The Pump House at The Queen’s Dock into an operational whisky distillery began in 2012 and has been spearheaded by Tim and his son Andrew, the distillery’s commercial director.

Smith & Sinclair unveiled a new, innovative retail experience at John Lewis’ flagship Oxford Street store this week.

The new experience plays on the senses and allows customers to discover the world of Smith & Sinclair’s edible cocktails through scent diffusing walls and a ‘pick & mix’ stand for grown ups.

Customers can ‘pick & mix’ to create their own edible cocktail gift box, and there’s also an on-site cocktail bar for when the Christmas shopping gets overwhelming.

The in-store concession at John Lewis Oxford Street is open until January 2018, creating an interactive environment for customers to play with Smith & Sinclair like never before. At the Edible Cocktails pick ‘n’ mix station, customers are able to sample what they see by pushing pastille buttons that diffuse scents before choosing their desired flavours.

Brockmans Gin has appointed former professional footballer John Bagnall as its UK brand ambassador.

The former Southport player currently runs his own gin events and has worked for Go Pro as well as several other major gin brands including Whitley Neill and Copperhead.

A man with a passion for gin, Bagnall is the founder of House of Gin, which runs a number of niche consumer experiential gin events, each attracting around 300 people keen to try some of the world’s leading gins.

Bagnall said: “I am so excited to be working with Brockmans. This is a gin I just love and I’m keen to ensure that even more people have the chance to taste it. I’ve worked with a number of leading gin brands and this is my favourite so it’s a dream come true to be working with the brand”.

The Wild Turkey Bourbon Lodge has taken over the first floor of The Ten Bells in Spitalfields this winter.

On the pub’s first floor, you’ll find yourself transported stateside to a traditional American hunting lodge where the room has been decked out in warm leathers, birch bark, plush sheepskin, taxidermy and has regal portraits lining the walls.

With a Bourbon menu to match, you can warm yourself from the inside with four twists on the classic Old Fashioned cocktail using Wild Turkey 101. The lodge will also offer festive sharing boards including a selection of cured meats, cheeses, pies and picked veg.

The lodge will be at The Ten Bells in Spitalfields until the end of February.

 

Campari UK has partnered with the Italian Embassy to host an event in celebration of Italian Cuisine Week.

Campari’s UK offices at The Shard were re-imagined as an Italian ‘Mercato’ for an evening celebrating quality, culture and natural ingredients, all things which lie at the heart of Campari.

The exclusive event, entitled ‘A Journey Of The Senses’, brought to life the best of Italian food and drink for guests to enjoy.

Along with key serves from the iconic Campari UK Italian portfolio, such as Aperol Spritz and Negroni, guests were invited to enjoy exclusive dishes which had been created to specifically pair with the drinks served.

Following the recent launch of its Tennessee Calling II campaign, which offers UK bartenders the chance to learn from the best in the business, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey revealed its top 10 bartenders from the North of England.

The Tennessee Calling II campaign began last month at the Liverpool Sessions, with live seminars hosted by London Cocktail Club co-founder, JJ Goodman; head bartender at The Savoy’s American Bar, Erik Lorincz; and Jack Daniel’s UK brand ambassador, Cam Dawson.

Bartenders were then challenged to create a cocktail, which embodied entrepreneurialism, creativity and quality, all integral to the Jack Daniel’s brand.

The 10 bartenders from across the North of England will go on to compete for a chance to visit Lynchburg, Tennessee for a unique Jack Daniel’s experience.

The Blue Bar at The Berkeley has launched a new immersive drinking experience called ‘Out Of The Blue.

The new experience comes from a partnership with Bacardi Brown-Forman and will see guests enter a 360-degree projection room where unique videos and scents will combine with cocktails.

The experience is designed to enhance the drinking experience by heightening the perception of flavour through sight, sound and scent.

It has been created from a theory that the context of a drink affects flavour and The Blue Bar has taken this idea further by curating a controlled environment that allows guests to explore flavour within a space where their senses are stimulated simultaneously.

SB headed to Flemings in Mayfair this morning to sample Ardbegs new release, An Oa.

The new release combines whisky aged in Sherry casks and new char Bourbon barrels. It said to be both sweeter and smokier than Ardbegs current 10-year-old release.

As well as the new release, SB had the chance to sample the cask-strength Pedro Ximanez and new char Bourbon cask-aged whiskies, which make up An Oa.

We also hopped over to pioneering whisky bar Black Rock in London to meet Andy Watts, the master distiller for South African whisky brand Bains. A group of journalists sampled the whisky, as well as a number of drams representing different ways Bains is matured.

Watts, previously a professional cricket player, spoke of his distinguished career in establishing a new whisky category, what makes South African whisky unique, and his plans for innovation.

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