The lovely people over at Rhubarb invited me to a cocktail making masterclass to celebrate the launch of their new bar and cocktail menu at Gallery Mess.
With PetiteFolle in London during the week these days, I asked her to come along. Big mistake. Like mid-week mac'n'cheese at midnight mistake.
But before everything went downhill, we were treated to a very cool little evening.
Tasty little morsels of food were tucked into eagerly - smoked salmon blinis, wild mushrooms in brioche with hollandaise (foodgasm), rosemary tinged rare seared beef, and courgette and ricotta wraps - before we kicked off the main event: cocktail making.
Mike took us through a crash course on how to make three of the new cocktails: White Truffle Martini, Tommy's Margarita, and Fig & Liquorice Caipirinha.
I don't know if it was the bubbles on arrival, the continuous cocktail sipping while learning, cachaca shots, or the killer cocktails themselves, but I don't think any of my cocktails turned out the way they were supposed to.
So this is what I learnt:
- If James Bond was a real man, he would have stirred, not shaken
- The twirly spoon type thing is called a "muddler"
- Counting to 6 on a free pour is 50ml
- And when you shake up a cocktail, you can't help but do a *ahem* "sex face"
Um, yeah. Scary.
Very responsibly, we were served up a few more delicious treats to help soak up the cocktails - but I fear the damage was already done.
After that, there was nothing for it but to drink more and share laughs (and a few tears) with our fellow cocktail makers.
A smashing night.
Oh, and this is what the cocktails were supposed to look like:
Yep. Think I'll be sticking to serving wine, and going to Gallery Mess for the cocktails.