chrisarazim

I have written about Nectar's cocktail competitions before, and they have mostly been stories about getting close. Panos reaching the Bumbu Originals final. The jalapeno syrup that came out of preparing for the Patron Margarita Challenge and ended up living permanently in Warmth Within. Those articles were about the process of competing, win or lose. This one is different, because for once the story is not about how we did in a competition. It is about how we never actually got to find out....

A few weeks ago, a customer got in touch and asked something we had not been asked before: could Nectar would be willing to organise a Cocktail Pop Up in Edinburgh, for a private party, somewhere other than Broughton Street. We said yes. It was our first pop up, and I want to write about how it actually came together, because it closes a loop that has been sitting open since before we even opened the bar. Why having a cocktail pop up in Edinburgh has been on our mind since before Nectar...

Before entering a cocktail competition for the first time, I had no real idea what the actual structure looked like. A year and ten entries later, I understand the shape of it well enough to map it out properly, and I think it is worth writing down, both for anyone considering entering their first one and as a record of what we have actually been doing behind the bar at Nectar. Stage one: the written submission Almost every competition begins the same way. The host brand releases a brief, and...