London Cocktail Month

London Cocktail Week has long been one of the busiest times in London’s hospitality calendar, encouraging consumers to explore the city’s cocktails bars at a reduced price. With signature serves at just £7 (or £10 for Champagne cocktails) festival goers can feel the freedom to find new favourite venues without a big hit to their wallets.

With Covid restrictions still in place, London Cocktail Week was extended for a second year, taking place over the whole of October. However, with more freedoms than last year it was nice to see a return to normal for many elements of the festival. Last year it was all about venues but this year saw the return of pop-up spaces.

We were lucky to be working with fantastic Indian gin Stranger & Sons on a campaign celebrating their signature serves of gimlets and Gibsons. We took a multi-level approach, working across the serves, educational events and gifting, collaborating with venues that showcased the diversity of venues across London: Hush – a great example of high volume mayfair venues; The Churchill – a fantastic luxury hotel bar; and Found – an independent craft cocktail venue with a local following.

The longer festival saw many seizing the opportunity to work with an array of brands over the month, either by creating a longer cocktail menu or changing the activations across the weeks.It was. We saw it happening most at the larger houses, who benefitted with from several partner brands taking part in the festival.

When it came to the LCM events, education seemed to be the main focus this year, especially for attendees from the on-trade. Bacardi ran the educational platform Jigger, Beaker, Glass several times throughout the month, incorporating diverse elements of the industry into their talks. Masterclasses were run by most brands, who went a step beyond simple tastings and brand information with more imaginative and interactive set ups.

For Stranger & Sons we launched a series of pickling masterclasses. With Gibsons as one of their signature serves, they want to move garnish pickles beyond store-bought onions by teaching simple rules for creating your own pickles. With fresh fruit regularly thrown away at the end of the day, preserved garnishes are a great step towards more sustainable cocktails.

London Cocktail Week has become known for its bar takeovers with bartenders flying in from all over the world. Last year this side of the festival was, understandably, on hold. This year the bar takeovers and guests were back – albeit in a slightly different way. In previous years we’ve seen the biggest names in the global industry, tempted to town by the Top 50 awards ceremony, and taking over an endless array of London venues. This year the spotlight of the London Cocktail Month takeover was moved to bars across the UK, from The Gate in Glasgow to Bench in Sheffield. Rather than drawing in guests with big names, venues and brands have used their platform to celebrate top venues from cities that a lot of Londoners don’t get the chance to explore.

However, bar takeovers and masterclasses weren’t the only events. We saw the return of a few large scale pop-ups and parties. Adjustments were, of course, made for Covid safety, making sure not to detract from the celebrations. Discarded partnered with many of the UK’s most sustainable venues to create a cocktail experience entirely from waste products. Guests were invited to book sessions in which they were guided through a menu of Discarded serves from the evening’s chosen venue. We even had the opportunity for larger scale events such as Axia Mastiha’s LCM closing party ‘Welcome to Snake Island’ – a large scale Halloween celebration for the trade, who have endured a tough couple of year.

It was impossible to ignore the rise in sustainable initiatives during the festival. From zero waste serves to positive fishing dinners and glass up-cycling masterclasses, there were multiple ways to get involved in planet positive activities. With Stranger & Sons sustainability formed part of the brief, and each venue interpreted it in their own way. The Churchill Bar foraged for local fig leaves to make an infusion, Hush created a zero-waste cordial, and Found repurposed and lengthened the life of ingredients already used around the bar.

We think the festival was definitely a success, and we can’t wait until next October!