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Down home with Jim Beam. In Shoreditch.
Before Christmas I was invited to the “Jim Beam American Stillhouse”. In town for just a couple of days it promised to transport me to “the rolling hills of Kentucky”, as well as offering “an attack on...
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Quintinye Vermouth Royal
Vermouth, the aromatized wine that mostly hails from France or Italy, is one of the founding cocktail ingredients, along with spirits and bitters (and like bitters vermouths were often medicinal in...
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Poitín: Irish moonshine comes out of the shadows
Sam MacDonald gives us a history of poitínTo Kentish Town last night and a subterranean bar called Shebeen, for an evening swilling poitín (or poteen, pronounced pot-CHEEN), the notorious Irish white...
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Boodles gin returns home
The modern bottle designDrifting through the spirits aisle of Sainsbury’s I noticed that they were now stocking Boodles gin. This took me slightly by surprise—DBS has always proclaimed it to be his...
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Aged gins: is the wood good?
In the march for novelty in the crowded gin market it seems that time of barrel-ageing may well have come. I was invited to a tasting of half a dozen varieties at Megaro Bar by King’s Cross in London...
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Catwalk cocktails fit for a Snow Queen
Judges tweet frantically as Robb Collins prepares to show his stuffLike most people I’ve long been aware of the cocktail competitions that seem part of the industry’s DNA, but last Tuesday was the...
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With a cherry on the top: Luxardo Sangue Morlacco
Cherry brandy is one of those ancient cocktail ingredients and, like “apricot brandy”, isn’t really a brandy at all but a liqueur. Typically neutral spirit is infused with crushed cherries, although...
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A little vodka alchemy from U'Luvka
Apparently this is what a balance of male and female looks likeMy sister is a Human Resources type. Nowadays she is freelance, but she used to work for a “wealth management” company. Clearly anyone...
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D1 London Gin: By the Power of Blueskull!
The front of the D1 bottleI was saying to someone only the other day that I couldn’t think of a single gin that marketed itself in the same “ultrapremium” lifestyle way that vodkas like Grey Goose and...
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Something WKD this way comes
DBS is not without his mischievous streak, and for a connoisseur his tastes are remarkably catholic—this is man who conducted his own Bacardi Breezer group tasting. (In this respect he reminds me of...
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Opihr gin's eastern promise
We had a Casablanca-themedCandlelight Club event last month and one of the cocktails devised by our mixologist David involved Opihr gin, of which I had not previously heard. Launched last year by...
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Pop goes the G&T!
As I drifted past a posh deli in the very posh town of Petworth, my eye was understandably caught by this in the window. A packet of “Gin & Tonic” flavoured popcorn. Obviously I couldn’t resist...
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Adnams gin, old and new
The original 50cl sample (left) and a newly-purchased 70cl bottleI noticed that my local Sainsbury’s had started selling Adnams First Rate gin. Having remembered it as impressing me favourably when I...
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Solerno: an orange liqueur you can't refuse
Once again I have Candlelight Club mixologist David Hamilton-Boyd to thank for bringing a new product to my attention, in this case Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur. Brought to us by master distiller...
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US whiskey: it's the little things that count
DBS gets stuck inThe groundswell of “craft” distilling continues to accelerate (only today I discovered a new distillery just five miles from my house). Over here in Britain it tends to take the form...
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Mezcal: Mexico's smoky spirit comes to town
The Pierde Almas range that we were tastingMost people with at least a passing interest in booze will have heard of mezcal, but probably very few know what it actually is. Many will think that it is a...
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Premixed cocktails coming in from the cold?
The KÖLD cocktails come in boxes of two sachets eachThere is nothing new about premixed cocktails: as DBS will tell you, manufacturers have been trying to peddle ready-mixed beverages for about as long...
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Regal Rogue, an Aussie vermouth fit for a king?
It seems only yesterday that I was commenting how rare it was for a new vermouth to be launched. That was in the context of Quintinye Vermouth Royal, and in truth it was a full eight months ago. (By...
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Hoist the gin pennant for Cornwall's finest
Walking along the cliff path on St Anthony Head in Cornwall, with views out over the mouth of the Fal, the ancient fortifications of Pendennis and St Mawes Castles, the boats slicing in and out of...
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Halloween cocktails
Bobbing for ApplesLast time I featured some Halloween cocktails they were for a menu I devised for the Candlelight Club Halloween Ball and I played to the gallery more than usual with some visual...
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