Kate Jackson from The King of Ladies Man is spearheading a monthly event to help bartenders of the, often overlooked, Clapham area gain new skills and knowledge.
Monthly get-togethers have been very effective in recent years with the likes of Reading, Oxford and Camden bartenders benefiting from such initiatives to great effect.
Clapham is close to the BarLifeUK head office so we have a soft spot for its superb bar scene. In recent times the likes of King of Ladies Man (KoLM) and Southsider Cocktail Club have joined the more recognised 64th & Social and Powder Keg Diplomacy.
Kate’s mission is to give bartenders from the area a monthly spirit training session followed by a cocktail competition to aid those not used to competing more confidence whilst among friends and colleagues.
The first session was hosted at KoLM and J. Wray & Nephew was the supporting brand. Rob Worsely was on hand to lead a training session on this much misunderstood spirit which was finished off with a few cocktail ideas to get the assembled crowd inspired for the following comp.
BarLifeUK joined Rob to judge the cocktails and it was great to see some new faces getting involved and getting that competition cherry popped.
Being an over-proof rum competition there was obviously a bit of fire (despite Rob’s best efforts to avoid it) and plenty of good chat. The crowd were very encouraging and the atmosphere throughout the evening was fantastic – helped by a superb Wray Punch the bar team were knocking out.
Everyone who took part got some goodies off Wray with T-shirts and bottles being handed out but the big prizes of £100 of Selfridges vouchers, a fancy shaker and CD’s were divided up between the top two.
In second place was the inter-bar team of Jimmy from Southsider and Micky from Rise 46 who gave us the flames and a superbly well thought out serve including dehydrated peanut butter and nutella. However they were pipped to the post by an extremely tasty drink from KoLM’s very own Nabeel.
Congratulations to Kate for taking the time to get this organised and to everyone who turned up. Hopefully this will inspire more areas to follow suit and more brands to support them.
Nabeel’s winning drink
25ml J. Wray & Nephew
25ml Maraschino
15ml lime juice
25ml pineapple juice
10ml pomegranate juice
Shaken hard double strained into martini or small coupette. Garnished with orange zest.