London Bar Show 2011

There is nothing that bartenders like more than a 'good old' trade show. Hundreds of beverage distributors and sales people pushing their new and exciting products on you, giving you a small sample and all for free. Cara and I had attended the Sydney bar show back in Australia, so when we heard about the London Bar Show, we had to attend.

We started our afternoon trying an argentinian beer, “Quilmes”. This beer has been brewing in Buenos Aires since 1890. Quilmes is a premium lager which is very light in taste and would be perfect for a hot summers day. Cara is not a big beer drinker and even she didn’t mind this. I guess that's it’s appeal, It’s a ‘non-beer-drinkers’ beer.  We moved on a tried a few other similar beers from places like Spain, Belgium, France and Italy.

As we made our way through the expo, we came to a stall promoting 'worm-wood' vodka. I won’t name the brand, because I prefer not to publicly “bag” a product online, but it’s safe to say if you ever come across a worm-wood vodka, steer well clear. It was horrible! I can only assume that this idea came about when the creators were trying to think of a spirit which had not been invented yet, and someone mentioned the word, ‘Worm-wood”. It was like drinking pure ethanol, with a smoky and earthy after taste.

So after tasting the wormwood vodka, we needed something to get that horrible taste out of our mouth. The answer, Ron Zacapa. Ron Zacapa is by far my favourite rum. It’s one of those rums which you never mix with anything. On the rocks will do nicely. It comes from East Guatemala, in a small town called Zacapa. The rum itself has not been around very long. It was first produced in 1976 to celebrate 100 years since the town had been founded. What makes this rum so special is the fact they only produce limited amounts each year and it is distilled and aged 2,300 metres above see level. Its has a great mixture of smokey and peppery flavours, balanced out with a very sweet after taste. There is a joke amongst bartenders, that the word “smooth” to describe spirits is thrown around far to often, but Ron Zacapa is definitely one of those spirits I would sum up    as being smooth.

We then moved on to trying an range of gins, whiskey’s, grappa and even some absinthe. I could go on about all the other things we tried at the bar show but it would take me to long.  So it’s safe to say by the end of the afternoon, we were a “little” tipsy. But we learnt a lot and had a great day. It’s a tough job doing all this product research, but someone has to do it.