AUGUST is the Edinburgh Festival. An annual celebration of comedy and culture. What could be better? Well how about throwing some cocktails into the mix.
The Edinburgh Cocktail Festival, the brainchild of dynamic duo Andy Gemmell and Lauren Stewart of The Drinks Cabinet, brings together Scotland’s best producers and bartenders. It’s surprising the city hasn’t delivered something like this before.
Cocktails can be stuffy. When they are over-complicated they put people off, just like some of the more “experimental” performers at the Festival proper. Whether it's cocktails or comedy, when done right, it can delight even the most discerning customer.
Based at a hub in the Waverley Development, there will be masterclasses, events, cocktails, live music and Scottish street food until August 28. The magnificent drinks tents include Tanqueray's Future Forest and Ketel One's Bloody Mary Kitchen.
I’ll be engaging in some critical research throughout, with Bloody Marys for breakfast and gin for periodic refreshments. Our own Lebowski’s will be open its secret back garden during the festival for those needing to add dairy to their liquid diet, in the form of frozen White Russians.
The food and drink scene in Scotland is full of people with amazing ideas and the requisite grit to carry them through. It's fitting that cocktails and street food are now on a pedestal as the world turns its attention to Edinburgh. After all, it's as representative of Scotland's culture as all the fantastic performers on stage.
Any bartender worth their salt knows that when making a cocktail, the punter deserves a performance. I suspect some of the best performers at the Fringe will be at the cocktail Festival. You'll have more fun than watching some naked dude play the entire works of Jimi Hendrix on a ukulele ...or whatever the hot ticket is this August.
Graham Suttle is the managing director of Kained Holdings which has nine venues, including The Finnieston and Porter & Rye in Glasgow.
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