The London Bar Show taking place June 15 - 16 will once again incorporate two cutting-edge seminar groupings: Drink Factory and the London Cocktail Summit. Drink Factory is comprised of three of the UK’s most innovative bartenders, Tony Conigliaro, Spike Marchant and Giles Cowan, who will demonstrate their latest liquid inventions using smoke guns, centrifuges, vacuum machines and other creative paraphernalia. And then there’s the London Cocktail Summit, which brings together drink education from national and international experts. The more than 40 educational sessions include discussions, presentations, demonstrations, tastings, experiments and competitions that focus on Britain’s cocktail past, present and future. All content will be recorded and published by Jared Brown and Anastasia Miller at Mixellany Ltd. “The objective of the Summit is to move the British bar industry from a group of enlightened professionals to a team of proactive catalysts for change in the same way that the London Bar Show was a catalyst for change a decade ago,” according to event organizers. “Speaker presentations, roundtable discussions, hands-on workshops and breakout sessions will culminate in a final presentation that documents the future trends of modern drinking. Its findings will be circulated internationally to spearhead a global conversation about modern drinking styles.” Good show.
Also over in Europe, just before the London Show: 2010 Cocktails Spirits, le salon professionnel des cocktails et des spiritueux, held May 30 – 31 at La Maison Rouge in Paris. Details will be uploaded soon at www.cocktailspirits.com.
The restaurant and bar at the Colonial-era Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York City will reopen in June under the operation of The Porterhouse Group from Dublin, Ireland. The restaurant and bar has been closed since February, but the upstairs museum remains open. The building — which has gone through many architectural changes as well as a fire — is famous as the location where victorious Gen. George Washington bade farewell to his officers in 1783, with punch, no doubt.
Upcoming events from our friends at the Museum of the American Cocktail: Thursday, April 22 will be Spice: The Fennel Frontier, presented by Tad Carducci in Washington, D.C.; Thursday, May 13 the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans hosts a World Cocktail Week celebration, presented by Dale DeGroff and Chris McMillian; and Thursday, September 16 will be The Suffering Bastard: Joe Scialom, International Barman of Mystery, presented by Jeff "Beachbum" Berry in Washington, D.C. Find info and purchase tix here.