Giles Looker, Rebekkah Dooley and Alex Kammerling

Though the society had its first event just four months ago, it has enjoyed an accelerated success, with events at 69 Colebrooke Row, Sipmsith distillery, and its Christmas party venue.

Mark Gill, Emma Stokes and Kate McGinlay held the first meeting of the not-for-profit society at 69 Colebrooke Row’s drinks lab in September.

Co-founder of Colebrooke Row, Camille Hobby Limon, explains that LCS got in touch after one of the bar’s masterclass sessions: “We originally agreed to have a group of 15 members in to show them the lab so Tony could demonstrate some of the equipment, and explain how certain ingredients are made up there.

“The subscription to the evening was successful and we offered the following evening to do the same thing, which again was full.”

One of the society’s founders, Kate McGinlay, said the events are also great marketing tools as well as money-spinners: “One bar explained that, one reason they were so keen to work with us is we bring along serious cocktail enthusiasts; members have a higher spend than the average punter plus our word of mouth is quite powerful – we count many many tweeters, bloggers, journos amongst our membership.”

With specialist groups of drinkers and partygoers like the Juniper Society and New Sheridan Club already established in London, cocktail clubs like the LCS offer bars to invite punters in to see their signature serves and talented bar staff. It’s also a great opportunity for small independent brewers and brands to get noticed.

Passionate Punters

But rent-a-crowd it ain’t – as Sam Galsworthy, distiller at Sipsmith, points out: “The members are people passionate about cocktails and the general movement towards locally made things – in our case, spirits. I’ve never fielded more interesting questions. They certainly know their stuff.”

Marketing manager at Callooh Callay, Rebekkah Dooley, said that LCS members gave bartenders a chance to work hard and show their skills: “The drink selections are more varied, with off-menu requests that allow us to be more creative and daring. We had the best audience a bar could want – a room full of avid cocktail lovers who are eager to drink, learn, and have fun.

She added: “There’s been an animated social media community of imbibers for a while now; it was only a matter of time before they started collectively challenging the bars of London to impress them.”

You can contact the London Cocktail Society by emailing:  info@londoncocktailsociety.co.uk

Before I turned up to Distillnation’s absinthe tasting in Purl, I Googled the much-maligned spirit and resolved not to bring up anything I thought I knew about the drink.

The house parties I went to as a teenager coincided with the popular UK revival of absinthe – as well as the release of Moulin Rouge – so I couldn’t be any more ignorant about absinthe.

I genuinely believed that the rituals invented in 1998 dated back to the Belle Epoque. I assumed the spirit was reserved for three-drink-limit cocktails like Corpse Revivers, and I also thought it was always green.

Boy, was I in for a surprise. Alan Moss kicked the evening off with a bit of backstory – he’s the co-owner of Swiss-made absinthe La Clandestine and brand ambassdor for Butterfly and an absinthe blogger.

Absinthe was first made by the Swiss as a painkiller and, like gin, it has a mix of botanicals and is a clear spirit. It was also popular with the Americans but after the French and US banned it, it was roundly ignored in the UK until distributors realised its potential.

Substitution Spirit

Absinthe can be served like a pastis – made louche or milky with drips of water – but as Purl demonstrated it’s a good replacement for cachaça in a caipirinha as well as a weird complement to mint, cream and honey because the high ABV holds its own against dairy ingredients.

The spirit’s also suitable for molecular tricks, according to Purl owner Tristan Stephenson – provided you lower the ABV to make it more stable during reactions. He talked about drawing on green fairy mythology to create absinthe bubbles or air to replace the absinthe rinse in a Sazerac.

It’s bound to resurface as the demand for classic Savoy-era and ‘Speakeasy’ drinks come to the fore. I was shocked to hear that the original Savoy cocktail book had 104 cocktails that included absinthe, compared with 3 vodka drinks.

The bar trade might have been experts on absinthe cocktails for a century now but, given the myths that fill consumers’ heads, it would do to share that expertise around.

Recipes:

Try making a modern absinthe cocktail for yourself tonight. The Clandestino is the most accessible drink for the mojito generation, and Butterfly Kiss matches the minty flavour of its spirit with the heaviness of cream.

Clandestino

• 3 Key limes
• 3-4 Tsps sugar
• 45ml Absinthe (La Clandestin)
• Crushed ice

Muddle the limes and sugar then shake over crushed ice and serve.

Recipe: Marcelo Godoy Simões, Brazil/Colorado.

Butterfly Kiss

• 30ml Absinthe (Butterfly)
• 30ml Honey syrup (1:1 honey and hot water)
• 15ml Cream

Shake over ice and strain. Serve in a coupe, garnish with a mint leaf.

Recipe: Brian Fernald, Boston.

The BBC, one of Marian Beke's Old Street Speakeasy cocktails for Edmun Weil. Photo: Bruno Drummond

The Nightjar is a passion project from Edmund Weil and his partner Roisin Stimpson. Edmund acts as general manager of the venue while Roisin runs the music and entertainment side; the pair is supported by bar manager Marian Beke and their Shaker-School-trained bartenders.

While Marian has bar experience at Montgomery Place and Artesian at the Langham Hotel, Edmund is a relative newcomer and spent just one year at Shoreditch House learning the ropes. (He was previously an English teacher and a PR)

I have no doubt that the bar will be a magnetic jazz and cabaret venue when it launches. But what kncked my socks off was the cocktail menu. When I met Edmund and Roisin on Friday night, I was lucky enough to be talked through their entire menu and the cocktail geek in me was bowled over.

The most eye-catching must be the BBC – one of Marian Beke’s competition-winning arrangements, the Sazerac-alike is served in a waft of absinthe smoke from the bar’s ‘smoking gun’.

Their aged pina colada looks like a must-try: two rums, fresh coconut milk and pineapple juice spend a week wrapped up in a barrel before the cocktail’s served.

Bespoke Ingredients

Lots of cocktails are made with the bar’s own liqueurs, bitters and infusions. The Name of the Samurai, for instance, has a ginger and raisin infused sake; there is also a blood orange and saffron liqueuer, a prune and Belgian truffle liqueurs and unique ‘electric bitters’ made from chilli-flowers in their signature drink.

The Voltcobbler: the Nightjar's signature cocktail, made with their own infusions and 'electric' chilli-flower bitters. Photo: Bruno Drummond

The thing that caught my eye on the menu was a Silk Stockings made with Earl Grey-infused condensed milk – this creativity is, at the moment, the preserve of just a couple of bars outside of SoHo.

It’s also deeply authentic, right down to the Hemingway cocktail taken straight from Islands in the Stream.

For me it’s another sign that the East End’s the new West End – something Anna and Heather from the Queen of Hoxton mentioned a year ago. Certainly, Edmund compared the cocktail menu to Purl’s and Nightjar’s smoking cocktail has a whiff of the Fixer Upper about it… Does it bother you to lose grungy venues (The Foundry, Victoria’s), or will you welcome Nightjar with open arms?

The Award Winning Stefanie Holt

London is gripped with a fever – the kind of excitement that only rum can cure. The city’s first annual Cocktail Week was rounded off with a weekend-long rum convention, closed with the Golden Rum Barrel Awards at the Hilton.

Chester Brown, brand ambassador for Mount Gay, was named the world’s best ambassador for the spirit; El Dorado’s Stefanie Holt the best in the UK. I was lucky enough to get to rum tastings held by both – but the differences between the two stuck out like cocktail umbrellas in a Old Fashioned.

As anyone who watches Mad Men will tell you, getting a brand message across to someone is an art form. The job is not, as many industry snarks presume, an easy buck – and it’s as creative as cocktail-making.

Stef and Chester had both applied that principle to their events. The where, when and why of a good cocktail is the difference between a kir and a Zombie. Like any bartender, the top brand ambassador asks who their customer is before they start.

First of all, the venue sets the tone

Mount Gay's Chesterfield Brown

Stef’s Eldorado event at the Jub-jub bar got us sitting around a tiny table to rub shoulders with fellow drinks bloggers and drinks geeks. Rum cocktails circulated and the conversation bubbled over.

Chester’s tasting was held in a dimly-lit dining room at Trader Vic’s in the Park Lane Hilton – perfect for the spirits connoisseurs, hotel bar managers and spirits collectors in attendance. But the long dark table kept chat and heckles to a minimum. Our questions were herded into a fifteen-minute slot at the end – although his Powerpoint presentation had answered most of them already.

Secondly, you can’t serve up what you don’t know

Chester had a Powerpoint presentation, perfectly scripted; Stef went from table to table and sat on someone’s knee to tell us about the different blends.

But both ambassadors brought their own background to the brand message. Chester sowed the Mount Gay story through with his own memories of the sugar buzz from stolen cane, and Barbados’ rum shop culture. Stef made a connection with the audience when she admitted that she hadn’t heard of Guyana either before she researched her brand.

Thirdly, your drink has the last word on the subject

For Stef, the tasting was fairly freeform – just a couple of notes on the spirit – but the rum cocktails sold the spirit to the crowd that she’d invited. If you know how to use social media and you have a good PR, it’s really easy to tailor your audience to a certain category (cocktail geeks, rum collectors, 18-35, mortgage-holders, pensioners – I could go on all night). At the Mount Gay event I sat next to a whisky buff who went to pieces, he enjoyed the 1703 so much.

Have you been to any outstanding tasting events recently? What do you think of my tips?