Sipsmith Gin Competition - on a mission to find a novel Martini!
Sipsmith Independent Spirits and Looking Glass Cocktail Club would like to invite you to a cocktail competition, inspired by a classic- the martini.
20th October 2015 at 3pm, spectators welcome
The mission was to ima-gin a martini where the old meets new and the two get along really rather spectacularly! A link to London would be a bonus. Bartenders and judges have been selected so we hope you can join us to sample some quality cocktails and join us for a few G&T's!
Cocktails will be judged on appearance, name, taste, originality, and replication.
Techniques will not be marked, but there will be a Q&A for extra points! Each competitor will have 6 minutes to present and mix their cocktail, including questions from judges.
BACKGROUND: The Sipsmiths
After years of working in the drinks industry we struck out on our own to pursue our passion for uncompromising and beautifully handcrafted small-batch spirits. All our spirits are created and hand-cut in our small west London distillery, on a 300 litre copper still called Prudence in genuinely small batches. The result is sublimely sippable spirits that are incredibly smooth, full of character and have a true intensity of flavour.
BACKGROUND: The Martini
We are on a mission to reignite the magnificence of a well made Martini....
Over the century since it was first created in New York, the Martini has inspired more veneration, variety and spirited debates than any other cocktail. Not all Martinis are made equal.
Nowadays almost anything served in a Martini glass (which used to be called a cocktail glass until the Martini boom of the 1990s) is considered to deserve its name. It hasn’t always been this way. From the original 1888 Martini thrown – not shaken or stirred – topped with a dash of absinthe to the Millionaire Martini topped with champagne, it may seem heretical to a Martini purist today, but connoisseurs were up in arms when bartenders began to omit the once-ubiquitous dash of La Fée Verte in the early 1950s.
The heart of the classic Martini cocktail is the pairing of gin and vermouth. In its early days, when you walked into a bar, the drink you had was a reflection of the individual barman’s creativity and talent - not a mixer’s ability to flawlessly replicate standard recipes. In that spirit, this competition is a celebration of the art of mixing flair and sophistication.