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The week in pictures

To celebrate Burns Night (25 January), luxury hotel The London Edition will host a ceilidh, serve Scottish-inspired snacks and mix up a host of signature cocktails.

From 7pm until 9pm on Friday 25 January, the Lobby Bar will host London’s top Scottish Ceilidh five piece, Licence to Ceilidh, who will put “a fresh twist” on traditional Scottish tunes.

The bar will also be serving up a special menu of whisky-based cocktails including Bobby’s Bru, which is made with Scotch whisky, coconut, Irn Bru, sugar syrup, lemon juice and green tea.

London-based hair salon and cocktail bar Blade Hairclubbing also plans to celebrate the birth of Scotland’s favourite poet this week.

The venue partnered with Kilkerran whisky for its Burns Night celebrations, which will see visitors enjoy signature cocktails inspired by famous Scottish people that have distinctive hairstyles.

Blade will be serving up the Sir Rod Stewart, made with Kilkerran 12, Walcher Organic Amaretto, Oatly Barista and Copperhead guarana, lemon & mandarin bitters, and the Princess Merida Brave, which combines Kilkerran 12, Irn Bru, Copperhead ginger, grapefruit and orange bitters, garnished with crystallised ginger.

Scotch whisky brand Crabbie also hosted an event to celebrate Burns Night this week, taking to The Caledonian Club in London for a traditional Burns Night supper.

Hosted by David Brown, managing director of John Crabbie & Co, the evening was a chance to sample the Crabbie whisky range, including its eight-year-old and 12-year-old expressions, as well as the brand’s soon-to-launch gin – which is based on a recipe found in the John Crabbie & Co archives dating back to 1837.

Attendees to this week’s National Whisky Festival in Glasgow will be among the first people to sample single malt Scotch whisky from the Isle of Raasay distillery.

The Island-based distillery will be at the festival, where head distiller Iain Robertson will host a masterclass that will include the opportunity to sample its first Scotch whisky.

Robertson will showcase the distillery’s new make spirit alongside cask samples from Raasay. Visitors will be able to sample five drams from specially selected rye, virgin oak and Bordeaux casks.

Bacardi Brown-Forman Brands (BBFB) continued its Jigger Beaker Glass 2.0 tour of the UK this week, as it arrived in London for a day of talks and workshops to discuss sustainability in the on-trade.

Taking place at renowned London cocktail bar Oriole, a host of industry experts held talks – including Rebecca Sides, BBFB trade ambassador for London and South UK, drinks writer Simon Difford and bartender Ryan Chetiyawardana.

The day included drinks-making demonstrations and seminars designed to teach guests how to commercialise a zero-waste ethos. Jigger Beaker Glass will now travel to Bristol for an event on 19 February.

This week, the Buffalo Trace distillery filled a fermenter dating back to 1883 with Old Fashioned Sour Mash for the first time in more than 100 years.

The fermenting vat, which is one of Bourbon industry innovator Colonel EH Taylor Junior’s original fermenters, was discovered while the American whisky brand was renovating event space at its distillery.

The fermenter has been recommissioned with the help of a Bourbon archeologist and will now be used to produce Old Fashioned Sour Mash, similar to how Taylor did nearly 150 years ago.

SB visited the American Bar at luxury London hotel The Savoy to sample its cocktails inspired by legendary comedy duo Laurel and Hardy this week.

The Stan and Ollie cocktails were created by head bartender Maxim Schulte to celebrate the release of a new film about the pair, called Stan & Ollie.

The cocktails will be available throughout January as the feature cocktails in the American Bar, the two contrasting drinks are black and white as a nod to the 1930s films that made the pair famous.

London museum The V&A has opened a new exhibition that takes visitors on a multi-sensory journey through the food and drink cycle.

Food: Bigger than the Plate will explore how individuals, communities and organisations are reinventing how we grow, distribute and experience food and drinks around the world.

Featuring more than 70 contemporary projects, new commissions and creative collaborations by artists and designers working with chefs, farmers, scientists and local communities, the exhibition is split into four sections: Compost, Farming, Trading and Eating.

SB headed to new London cocktail bar Fam this week to sample a selection of its cocktails and bar snacks.

Opened by bartenders Dre Masso, Megs Miller and Rhys Wilson, the London bar serves up cocktails including The Claymore, which consists of blended whisky stirred down with English sparkling wine cordial, and Ten Push-Ups, which combines dark rum Fair Café liqueur, espresso and a house-made falernum.

The bar’s food offering includes English cheddar cheese spread and sourdough chips, and a Dingly Dell ham and cheese toastie on homemade bread with tomato compote.

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