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The week in pictures

Luxury Tequila maker Patrón hosted the star studded opening of the Rise Art Prize at House of Vans in London this week.

Famous faces, including Ralph Ineson, Lily Allen and Oliver Proudlock, attended the inaugural ceremony, which hoped to unearth the most exciting artists from around the world.

The Rise Art Prize is open to the public at House of Vans from 9 February to 25 February 2018.

Glasgow Taxis’ drivers were happy to let someone else do the driving for once as they visited the Clydeside Distillery this week.

The distillery invited drivers and office staff from the Scottish taxi company to tour the site as a belated Christmas present.

Glasgow Taxis chairman Stephen Flynn said: “The Clydeside Distillery is a fantastic addition to the banks of the River Clyde. Our drivers will no doubt be spreading the word far and wide to their passengers.”

Madalyn Kay was named the winner of the Heaven Hill Brands Cocktail Competition regional final in Austin this week.

Kay’s creation, called Lift Me Up, combined Elijah Craig Bourbon with cold brewed coffee, buttered pecan orgeat, cream and soda water.

Regional finalists from the competition will compete at the grand final in Georgia in June. 

Beefeater hosted the grand final of its MIXLDN 7 competition in London this week.

Maxim Schulte, representing Hong Kong, was named this year’s winner with his Stack of Fortune cocktail. He will now have the chance to make his own limited-edition bottling of Beefeater gin with the help of master distiller Desmond Payne.

The competition also saw America’s Jason Seele named the people’s champion after winning the public vote.

Bacardi’s global workforce will be heading ‘Back to the Bar’ to celebrate the 156th anniversary of Bacardi.

All 5,500 Bacardi employees will be downing tools and visiting hundreds of bars around the world to reignite the company’s entrepreneurial spirit and culture.

It is hoped that this initiative will become a new Bacardi tradition, allowing employees to witness the great creativity of the bartenders who lead innovation in the drinks industry.

SB‘s editor Amy Hopkins soaked up the Colombian rum experience during a dinner hosted by La Hechicera at the enchanting Mandrake Hotel.

Miguel Riascos de Castro, co-founder of the brand, fascinated guests with the story of his family’s move into rum and La Hechicera’s home in the Colombian Caribbean.

Meaning ‘enchantress’ in Spanish, La Hechicera is a solera-matured rum containing liquid aged between 12 and 21 years.

Artist Paul Bower has brought Fentimans Rose Lemonade to life on a new Valentine’s Day mural on the Shoreditch Art Wall.

To celebrate the wall, Fentimans has challenged the bars of London to create a Valentine’s Day serve, using its Rose Lemonade. Representatives of the soft drinks maker will be going into bars and signing them up for the competition.

The United States Bartenders’ Guild Legacy Cocktail Competition has crowned its two national finalists, French Scotty Marshall and Moe Isaza.

Marshall’s creation, the Coki Beach, mixed Bacardi Ocho with toasted coconut syrup, lime juice, and allspice dram, while Isaza combined Bacardi Ocho with bitter orange, amaro Montenegro, pineapple juice, coffee liqueur and lemon to create his Poderoso cocktail.

The pair will travel to Mexico City in May for the grand final of the Bacardi Legacy Global Cocktail Competition.

A Scottish family firm has resurrected the Victorian tradition of showcasing gin in glass decanters known as Gin Pigs.

Stirling-based Angels’ Share Glass launched the handmade products, designed by renowned glassmaker Tom Young MBE this week.

The re-fillable glass pigs are hand-made in the firm’s studio and include 50ml of Scottish gin.

Absolut revealed a new global campaign this week featuring naked employees, which aims to emphasise the transparency of its vodka.

The brand released a new film, called The Vodka With Nothing To Hide, featuring 28 employees from The Absolut Company.

The film invites viewers on a “revealing” journey, using nudity as a metaphor for Absolut’s production process in Åhus, Sweden.

Absolut will also open the doors to its distillery and new visitor centre this summer, allowing consumers the chance to experience the production process first hand.

This week saw celebrations take place across the globe to mark International Scotch Day on Thursday 8 February.

American actor James Marsden, supermodel Shanina Shaik and actress Suki Waterhouse were invited to lead a series of special celebrations around the world to celebrate 2018 event.

Ronan Beirne, global brand marketing director at Diageo, said: “Last year’s International Scotch Day was a huge success and this year we wanted to turn up the volume and make it even more of a celebration with our three global ambassadors and events in many more markets.

Scotch whisky maker Glenmorangie has partnered with National Museums Scotland as part of a new exhibition celebrating Scotland’s early silver.

The exhibition will tour the country with a collection of objects that show how silver became the most important precious metal in Scotland.

With a collection of objects from the 9th to the 12th century AD, the exhibition will visit museums across Scotland until March 2019.

Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC) this week donated US$65 million to the Step up for Students scholarship programme.

The scholarship serves low-income families in Florida and RNDC’s donation will help more than 9,000 students attend school.

For the 2017-18 school year, Step up for Students is serving more than 100,000 students throughout Florida with tuition scholarships valued at over US$6,343 per person.

Diageo and its vodka brand Smirnoff were honoured with the 2018 Corporate Equality Award at the Human Rights Campaign Greater New York Gala.

Smirnoff Vice President, Jay Sethi, accepted the award on behalf of Diageo due to the brand’s long-standing support of the LGBTQ community.

Last year, the vodka brand launched its limited-edition ‘Love Wins’ bottling, which donated $1 per bottle to Human Rights Campaign.

The Isle of Arran Distillery is celebrating after its visitor centre in Lochranza welcomed a record number of visitors in 2017.

More than 100,000 people visited the distillery last year – a 6% increase on visitor numbers in 2016.

With the Scotch Whisky Association’s most recent report estimating 1.7 million visits to all 130 Scotch whisky distilleries, Arran accounts for 7%.

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