London Cocktail Week is a unique celebration of our capital’s unrivalled cocktail culture. Through a host of seminars, pop-up bars, tastings, parties and master-classes, aimed at both novices and experienced professionals, London Cocktail Week will inspire, educate and unite cocktail lovers. This year, the festival’s events will again be held in the historic and beautiful Seven Dials in the heart of the West End – so come and explore our wealth of pop-up bars and soak up the street party atmosphere.

The most talk-about element of London Cocktail Week are our Cocktail Tours, happening in over 150 brilliant bars across the capital – all our partnering venues will be offering £4 cocktails throughout the week to wristband holders. These partnering bars have been cherry-picked because of their shared dedication to delivering wonderful service, excellent drinks and a great experience – so always fancied that exclusive hotel bar? Never got round to tracking down that elusive speakeasy? Want to visit a brand new venue or revisit an old favourite? Now is your chance.

To get involved, you’ll need a wristband and you can get one here.

MISUNDERSTOOD AND UNDER APPRECIATED

An introduction to the white rum category, a style that is often over shadowed by age. Participate in a comparison of Spanish, English and French styles and learn how to make
great drinks with the best cocktail spirit base of all!

If you would like to reserve a space, then please email; bbfbtrainingteam@bacardi.com

Guests should arrive no later than 15 minutes before the seminar starts or places will be reallocated on a first come first serve basis.

Please be aware that this is a Trade Only Seminar

With a week and half to go until this year’s UK RumFest, what can you expect of your day out immersing yourself in all things rum? Well for starters, Rum and a lot of it.

It may sound obvious, but with so many rum producers exhibiting at the show and with most of them having more than one expression of rum available, for those who have never been before, if can be quite an overwhelming experience as to how much rum there is to choose from on the day.

This year’s exhibitors list includes: Angostura Rum, Appleton Estate Rum, Banks Rum, Blackwell Rum, Bristol Classic Rum, Chairman’s Reserve Rum, Cruzan Rum, Don Papa Rum, DonQ Rum, Doorly’s Rum, El Dorado Rum, English Harbour Rum, Gosling’s Rum, Green Island Rum, Koko Kanu, Lamb’s Rum, Mount Gay Rum, Mount Gilboa Rum, Old Grog Rum, Pink Pigeon Rum, Plantation Rum, Pusser’s Rum, Pyrat Rum, R St Barth, Ron Bacardi, Ron Barcelo, Ron Botran, Ron Brugal, Ron de Jeremy, Ron Diplomático, Ron Fortuna, Ron Zacapa, Rum Fire, St. Aubin Rum, St. Nicholas Abbey Rum, Toz Rum, Virgin Gorda Rum, Wray & Nephew Rum, XM Royal Rum

While some of this rum will be available in the form of cocktails, most will be provided in the form of 1cl tasters – all the better for being able to appreciate the flavour and character of the rum. For those of you who are not used to drinking spirits neat, the best piece of advise to be offered is pace yourself, drink plenty of water from the various water coolers dispersed around the show and follow the RumFest Etiquette Guidelines.

So what else can you look forward to? Well the UK RumFest describes itself as:

… an international celebration of rum & cane spirit. The Rum Experience prides itself on bringing together the finest rum, great food and a range of educating seminars and entertainment to make learning about rum both fun and stimulating.

From personal experience, this statement does truly sum up what to expect when visiting RumFest and it’s also fair to say that words alone cannot sum up the experience. Of course, if you don’t follow the advice given above, you might find it even harder to put anything into words the following day… So lets forget words for a moment and rely on the old adage of a picture paints a thousand words and check out the Rum@Charlosa Pinterest board for some photographic inspiration of some of the things to expect at RumFest.

And what of the great food, education and the fun mentioned above. Well it includes: live entertainment, such as Salsa, Soca, Reggae, Zouk and Samba; the Tropical Food Market; the Cooking Demonstration Stage (hosted by Chef Hasan de Four); Food and Rum Pairings; the chance to win holidays to the Caribbean and visit a real rum distillary; live cocktail demonstrations; cocktails to try from some of the UKs best mixologists; hundreds of rums to try and buy and several Rum Experience University Masterclasses conducted by industry experts and master blenders.

All being well you’re now sold on the idea of the rum, but which shores must you head to with a steady wind in search of this here pirate’s booty. Well, for the second year in the events history you can expect to set sail towards the ExCel Exhibition Centre on the northern quay of the Royal Victoria Dock in London Docklands. The nearest station is Custom House on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which is served from either the Tower Gateway or Stratford lines through to Beckton.

The UK RumFest 2013 opens its doors at 12pm midday on Saturday 12th October, with last pours at 4.30pm and closes at 5pm. For those of you who either can’t make the Saturday or just love rum that much that you need to head back for a second day, you’ll be pleased to know that RumFest is also opening its doors for the same times on Sunday 13th October.

Now you know when and where to head for your rum, how much is this little expedition going to cost you to get there. Well RumFest tickets come in two flavours and cost £25 and £45 each day for the Rum Experience Ticket and the Connoisseur Cove Ticket respectively. For the serious rum lover, you can alternatively purchase a weekend Connoisseur Cove Ticket for £80, giving a saving of £10 over separate tickets for both days. All tickets are subject to a booking fee.

So what do you get for your money and which ticket should you go for. Well this will largely depend on what you’re interested in for the day. Both tickets will give you:

• The Rum Bars sampling 1cl tots in exchange for your tokens ( full sized cocktails will be on sale)

• Small selection of rum brands sampling 1cl tots in exchange for your tokens

• The Main Entertainment Stage

• Seminar Rooms

• Tropical Food Market stands selling hot and cold food

• Food Demonstration Stage hosted by Chef Hasan De Four

• 5 tasting sample tokens to exchange for 1cl sample and 50ml mini cocktail samples within the Rum Experience Area ( no more tokens will be available to purchase).

But only the Connoisseurs Cove tickets will also include:

• Entry to the Connoisseurs Cove with a selection of brands exhibiting their premium rums and serving 1cl samples (no drink tokens needed here)

And for those of you in the professional drinks trade, make sure you register for The Boutique RumFest, which runs alongside RumFest, for the opportunity to see and try many new brands and expressions, many of whom are looking for UK distribution.

So now you know what to expect, what are you waiting for, mark Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th October in your diary, head over to the UK RumFest 2013 Website and book your tickets now and make you so you finish London Cocktail Week with some serious rum fun.

Oh did I not mention it’s London Cocktail Week next week… You wait ages for a drinks event to turn up and then they all turn up at the same time – no wait, isn’t that meant to be buses… Anyway, make sure you also check out the London Cocktail Week website to help get you in the right spirit for the UK RumFest 2013.