bringing drinks to life

I was really surprised at the response to our competition to win a bottle of El Dorado 12yo and 2 tickets for RumFest. Actually scrap that, with a really good bottle of rum on the line and forty quids worth of tickets I guess there was a reasonable incentive to send us a recipe. I was really happy to have so many excuses to drink autumnal rum cocktails! Admittedly the B&T drinks cabinet is now running a little low on El Dorado rums but it was all in a good cause.

After much sipping, and comparing of notes we finally managed to narrow the entrants down to just 10 that we thought were worthy of being added to the Bitters & Twisted drinks database, and the creators of those drinks had their names thrown into a hat so that a winner could be drawn at random… and the winner is…. You’ll have to read on to find out I’m afraid.

The whole point of this competition was that the weather here in the UK has definitely taken a turn for the colder and the leaves are changing colour as we speak. While I am a big fan of sunshine I am also a big fan of all those autumn flavours especially when you throw them at a good bottle of rum and see what sticks! I am pleased to say I have a few new autumn drinks that I will be turning to over the next couple of months, and one that might just see me the whole way through winter. Sadly Rob Poulter didn’t win the competition, but his autumn drink definitely deserves a mention here especially as it helped propel him to Theme’s Bartender of the year recently:

I don't know about you but I love October. Yes I know it marks the end of summer and signals the departure of what little sunshine we get here in the UK, but with the leaves turning colour and the weather turning a touch colder it reminds me of the forgotten joys of Autumn drinks. In this case I am not talking about hot drinks (although start warming some ale and talk to me about a rum flip and I am all ears...) although they have their place, but I am thinking more about those flavours I associate with autumn: apples and spices, honey and ginger, rum, cognac and bourbon... you know the stuff, all warming and comforting!

October makes me think specifically about rum of course as London gets ready for Rum Fest. www.rumfest.co.uk If you happen to be reading this blog from somewhere outside of the UK... well what are you waiting for? 2 days of rum in all its versatile glory should be a good enough excuse to book travel tickets! Yes a bar show for both consumers and trade, dedicated entirely to all things sugar cane... what could be better? Rum Fest is in its third year now and this year is shaping up to be its best yet. In fact if you are willing to bear with me and keep reading, we will be putting a couple of tickets up for grabs along with a bottle of rum to one lucky reader.

I hope you have been making the best of the recent burst of good weather we have had? At B&T HQ in rural Hampshire we have been doing our best to step away from the computers and get out in the back garden with friends. Obviously that means barbecues and cocktails and for us it meant going that one step further and hosting a tiki party. We pushed the boat out on this one, but actually it is pretty easy to do. Invite a load of mates, tell them to wear grass skirts or hawaiian shirts, get some rum and fresh fruit in, fire up the bbq and pray for good weather.

Now as we're not the sort of people to do things by halves we did all the above as well as setting about building a bar for the patio, a roasting pit for cooking a whole pig and bringing out the fire pit for later in the evening. With 50 of our closest friends heading over and the weather forecast looking good it seemed the right moment to bring out the punch bowl and the pitchers and to start preparing big batches of drinks.