For the fifth year running, Seven Dials in Covent Garden will next week play host to a seven day event that celebrates the best of London‘s cocktail culture, aptly named: London Cocktail Week.
From Monday 6th to Sunday 12th October, the boutique side of Covent Garden will be the heart of London Cocktail week, offering tastings, master classes and more. Alongside three other London locations, it will also remain a collection point for wristbands. Retailing at £10, wristbands open up a world of bespoke cocktails across venues in the city, setting sippers back by only £4 a pop.
Hannah Sharman-Cox launched LCW in 2010 after taking inspiration from cocktail festivals around the world. Boasting a first class liquor scene, the capital was missing an opportunity to unite discerning drinkers.
Predominantly a trade event, Sharman-Cox took the opportunity to put together a celebration of the drink. The festival was unexpectedly flooded with the general public and has now become a wide reaching and recurring event on the calendars of cocktail lovers, with more than 70% of attendees now consumers. LCW is the efforts of international events company ABV Global, which is also responsible for bringing London Wine Week and for the first time next year, London Beer Week, to the city.
London Cocktail Week allows small business to host pop-ups and introduce cocktail concepts, new recipes and mixing talents to consumers. The cocktail scene is highly competitive but LCW provides a great platform for popular bars and bartenders to try out new ideas. Lesser known brands might only have a small distillery in East London but with the popular festival, they‘re given a chance to offer something to the public in Central London.
Retail Gazette spoke to Siobhan Payne, festival director for London Cocktail Week, about ABV‘s decision to partner with Seven Dials for the event:
“For us, we were very keen to have one place where the trade, and also the consumers, could be really immersed” Payne told us. “Although there‘s more than one collection point for wristbands and exciting things will happen across all of London, we choose Seven Dials, Covent Garden as the main hub because of its village feel. It‘s a great location for smaller brands to promote themselves and for bigger brands to trial concepts.”
Cocktail lovers will rejoice at the Shop and Sip activity taking place in Seven Dials, where shoppers can enjoy a tipple whilst browsing the likes of Coco de Mer, Caudalie, Foxhall, Farah Vintage, Tatty Devine, Shu Uemera, Le Coq Sportif and Peter Werth.
The festival will also be jam-packed with myriad events for the trade, including a seminar on how to launch a drinks brand.
