Aside from eating copious amounts of food and drinking a lot of beer at the Festival Hub, I didn’t do anywhere near as much this year at the Festival. Not a deliberate choice, but I put less pressure on myself to go to everything and I think this means I enjoyed myself a whole lot more.
I mean, what’s not to like about hanging around in the sun on Albert Square eating gorgeous things from Bangers and Bacon, The Hip Hop Chip Shop, The Mac Factory, Viet Shack, Fire and Slice and Splendid Sausage et al?
Yes, I ate a lot.
I also drank a fair bit too. Away from Vin Van Voom, The Blue Pig and Thwaites Beer Tent, there was the spirit fun to be had at the Liquor Market. Now in it’s second year, it had moved from the Corn Exchange, to the basement space at Elixir Tonics & Treats, and I was keen to see what was on offer.
There were some familiar faces – Penderyn Whisky were there for their first visit, who I know very well from a distillery tour last year, as well as their visit to Manchester Whisky Club. Stunning whiskies and gin – their peated remains one of my ultimate favourites.
Long term favourite Ron Cubay was there too – with some fantastic limited offers on the day, including on their 10 Year Old Reserva Especial. Lip smackingly good.
I was also thrilled to meet the team behind Sibling Gin – one of my most recent acquisitions and a favourite sipping gin. I’m looking forward to arranging to visit them at their distillery in Cheltenham and their parent’s brewery if I can wrangle a visit to that too. I do love alcoholic geekery.
We also spotted another familiar bottle – in the City of London Distillery Gin – this was sitting alongside a vodka that we were completely unfamilliar with – Konik’s Tail.
This Polish vodka is unusual for a number of reasons. The name is based on a legend, that sighting a glimpse of the Konik’s Tail (the spirit of the forest in horse form) is to ensure a good harvest and thus, a good vodka. The vodka is made from a combination of golden rye, early winter wheat and spelt grain and is distilled four times. The distillation means that unlike a vodka distilled five times, it still retains some of the creaminess and flavour that can be lost in the final distillation and the combination of grains means that the flavour of the vodka is more prominent than many distilled from a single grain. There’s a sweetness, a good kick of citrus, licorice and a little aniseed. It’s an impressive vodka that needs no additions
Along with these two lovelies we saw Cocchi – less of a stranger to me in cocktails, but not something I’d tasted on it’s own before and we were in for a bit of a treat. There were three samples on offer from Cocchi – Americano, Rosa and Vermouth di Torino.
The Americano is probably the most well known and is often used in cocktail making. All are aperitivo wines and can be found in the Torino/Asti area of Italy drunk as such (like Aperol is in other parts of Italy). The balance of bitter and sweet is perfect for getting your tastebuds going ahead of a meal.
The differences between each are quite interesting, the Americano has more citrus and orangeflower notes, whereas the Rosa (which has only been in existence for a couple of years) has a slightly more syrupy nature and lots of berries and soft fruits. Finally, the Vermouth di Torino has a lot more in the way of herbs and a greater depth to it.
After three samples of this lovely stuff, my tastebuds were all but tingling – luckily next on our list was something a little unusual. A white spiced rum,
I’m aware of a number of dark spiced rums – Old J and Sailor Jerry to name two, but I had to admit to being unaware of a white one. DeSilver is the only one I’ve ever tried and it’s a rather interesting little rum. Straight, it’s recommended you drink it as an iced shot. I found it strong but the flavours are fascinating too – lots of gingerbread, to me proper doughy gingerbread, cloves, a touch of white chocolate, pepper and lemon oil. This is just begging for some cocktail fun.
Edging along the same table, we went from rum to something infinitely more refined. Cognac.
Cognac seems to have been left a little on the shelf recently, but in the last couple of years, with the resurgence in so many other spirits, finally people are beginning to revisit this elegant spirit.
On offer from R. Delisle were an array of ages – from their VS with it’s lightly spiced apple flavours, to it’s XO which is much deeper and has a delicious kick of white pepper on the tip of the tongue.
We were even lucky enough to sample one of the most expensive Cognac’s on the stand, and even at such an incredible strength (comparable to a cask strength whisky) the floral notes were still discernible in amongst the pepper and fruit. Beautiful.
Dragging ourselves away from Cognac, we headed over for something a little more down to earth, with Jose Cuevo and Tincup Whiskey.
The Jose Cuervo Tradicional is one that a lot of us probably know as a shooter tequila. However, the recipe has been refined and it’s no 100% blue agave tequila. This means it’s much smoother to drink and can be enjoyed as a sipper rather than something you try to neck before the burn hits. In fact it’s so good I may have had a rather large sample. Ahem.
Tincup Whiskey has it’s home in Colorado (somewhere I’ve always fancied visiting) and is made in the bourbon style. This means it has a good balance of sweetness, pepper, and spice and, to be quite honest, is a bloody dangerous whiskey. It goes down so smoothly, your glass will be empty before you realise and you’ll be looking blankly at the person holding the bottle wondering how you managed to finish it so quickly and can you have some more please. Please?
Jonathan provided us with delicious mini cocktails from Midori, Luxardo and the gorgeously sweet Licor 43 – I’m already pondering some baking ideas with this pretties.
And speaking of baking, how about a vodka, Polgar, known as Bread Wine – that tastes like a loaf. No carbing it? Now you can get the bread flavour in alcohol form. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything like it.
As we wobbled our way around, we spotted familiar rums from Chairman’s Reserve, as well as one we didn’t recognise, El Ron Prohibido. This bitter sweet rum is unusual, not only because it’s a Mexcian rum, but also because it’s aged in sweet wine casks, which add an extra depth of flavour.
Our final stand out was La Cava De Don Agustin, another white tequila. This was another easy sipping blanco, that deserves a little time and attention. Sweeter and slightly more syrupy in the mouth than the Jose Cuervo, this even went down well with my date Lisa, who really doesn’t like tequila!
Once again Liquor Market, another fantastic year and another fantastic selection – and this barely touches on everything there.
Can’t wait til next year.
Tickets for this event were provided by the organiser of the event, Drinks Enthusiast, for free. As with everyone else who attended, all samples were free to try.
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