The week in pictures
On Wednesday, the Strand Palace Hotel held a preview of its new cocktails in the hotel’s Gin Palace. To celebrate London Fashion Week the mixologists have created a series of limited edition cocktails celebrating London’s very own alumni of supermodels including Kate Moss, Jourdan Dunn and Cara Delevigne.
To celebrate the premiere of Bridget Jones’s Baby in Forum Cinemas in Riga, Riga Black Balsam had bartenders mixing specially-made ‘Stairway to Heaven’ cocktails and an array of acts took to the stage to provide entertainment.
Bombay Sapphire has launched The Glasshouse Project, a three-day bartender workshop at Carousel between 5-7 September with 12 of the world’s best bartenders flying in from across the world for the event. Leading innovators from a range of creative industries including cuisine, design and technology gave interactive presentations during the workshop, aimed at facilitating the attending bartenders’ creativity, helping them to think of new ideas that will excite, inspire and delight cocktail aficionados around the world.
It’s been a hectic week for Jägermeister as they rounded off the festival season at Bestival in Isle of Wight last weekend with four action-packed days of bombastic DJs, amazing live music and cold Jäger serves at its JägerHaus.
And on Tuesday, Jägermeister teamed up with organic, London-based Joe’s Tea Co. to develop an experimental series of chilled tea-based cocktails, exploring the delicious world of the growing tea-cocktail trend. Launching at The Breakfast Club during September, Florian Beuren, Jägermeister’s UK brand ambassador and Joe Kinch, founder of Joe’s Tea Co have combined their passion and knowledge to create three delicious tea cocktails.
The first mini-festival drawing Speyside’s finest food and drink producers together in one central venue was held in Elgin last weekend (9-12 September). At Spirit of Speyside: Distilled, there were a range of specialist masterclasses covering topics from cocktails to food pairings and there were new, rare and cask strength drams, and insights into the art of whisky, gin and beer making led by experts in their craft. The 30 plus exhibitors included a range of distilleries responsible for producing brands such as Aberlour, Benromach, Cardhu, Cragganmore, The Glenlivet, Glen Moray, Benromach, Macallan, Glenfiddich and Glen Grant.
On Wednesday, London-based rare tea specialist Benjamin & Blum held an exclusive tasting to celebrate its launch in the UK. Founder Paul Benjamin led a tasting of tea and spirits and unveiled a new limited edition blend of tea and whisky.
Chambord returned with its summer event this September, The Chapter Eight Games, giving visitors the chance to take part in a game of croquet, with mallets inspired by the flamingo which stars in Chambord’s lead TV commercial. A Chambord bar was open to the public throughout the games, selling Chambord’s hero cocktail serves, including the Chambord Royale and also the specially created Chapter Eight cocktail.
A new cocktail menu has launched at Mr Fogg’s Residence on Tuesday called ‘Tails of the Dark Arts.’ The new menu is inspired by the many untold and mysterious encounters from Phileas Fogg’s Around the World in 80 Days adventures and showcases a range of never-before-seen Victorian tipples.
Black Cow Vodka has launched its first cinematic advert ‘Meadow’. The dreamlike advertisement is set in the Dorset countryside, where a young couple is glowing in the aftermath of enjoying the uniquely distilled spirit. Meadow will have its world premiere at the Electric Palace Cinema in Bridport in Dorset and will then be shown across Black Cow’s global markets.
This week we headed to Ladies and Gentlemen in Kentish Town to host the Asian Margarita heat of The Wenneker Swizzle Masters cocktail competition – check out the October issue of The Spirits Business for full details of the afternoon’s events.
Yesterday the Kyoto Distillery in Shimamoto, Japan, received a blessing for safety and business prosperity from the local Shinto shrine.
