Sunday 12 June 2011

Sun, Surf & Pebble Beaches: Welcome to Brighton Beach

We have had an amazing first two weeks in London, but it was time for us to take our first trip outside the nations capital. We had heard rave reviews about Brighton (South England, about an hour on the train from London), so we thought that this would be great place to go and visit.  As soon as we arrived at the beach side town, the heavens closed in and the rain began to pelt down. Not the best start to our trip. As we walked down the main street, we reached the "beach". Well... Us Aussie's had never seen a beach like it. Not a grain of sand in sight, just a couple of billion pebbles instead. Despite standing in the rain and looking at a deserted pebble beach, we were still determine to explore the town and get the most out of what Brighton has to offer.

Brighton is a major tourist destination in the UK, famous for the Brighton Pier amusement park which stands out at the end of the jetty. Along with Brighton Pier, are the many bars, cafe's and restaurants which are jammed into this small town. As we explored, we visited many places, but one in particular took our fancy. We went to visit the Havana Bar, a fine dining restaurant, which has a reputation for making great cocktails. After consulting the menu for quiet some time I decided to order a drink called a "Somerset Sunset". This drink consisted of St. Germain elderflower liqueur, lemon juice, Calvodos, Creme de Mure, Creme de Framboise and soda water. For those who don't know what some of those ingredients are, i'll explain. Calvados is an apple flavoured brandy made in France. Creme de Mure is a blackberry liqueur and Creme de Framboise is a raspberry flavoured liqueur. This drink is built in a tall glass and is measured with 15ml of ingredient and topped up with soda. This drink has great flavour combinations. The blackberry and the raspberry liqueurs are obviously going to work well together. The addition of the apple brandy gives the drink another dimension and then the after taste of the elderflower liqueur pulls all the flavours together and finishes it off nicely. Very nice and very refreshing.

The Havana bar certainly lived up to it's reputation. The Somerset Sunset was a great well constructed and still very simple built cocktail. When you go to a beach side town, you hope that it gives you great sunny weather. So the fact that it was raining did get us down a little, but a couple of cocktails at the Havana Bar certainly fixed that.





The Havana Bar's: "Somerset Sunset"

15ml St Germein Elderflower Liqueur
15ml Calvados (Apple Brandy)
15ml Creme de Mure (Blackberry Liqueur)
15ml Creme de Framboise (Raspberry Liqueur)
15ml Lemon Juice
Topped up with Soda water

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