Two cock­tail-related news bites for you today.

Item one! Last week saw the offi­cial launch of The Black Spar­row, a beau­ti­ful space with very deli­cious food and drinks. You might be like “huh, what, where?”. We’ve already writ­ten about the bar, but that was when it was con­fus­ingly called Deluxe – it’s under the Embassy Theatre. You can read lots more about the Black Spar­row in this post by Paul Blom­field, but suf­fice to say based on what we ate and drank (check out the menu PDF with cock­tails and sliders and sundaes), we will def­in­itely be going back there – just as soon as that hor­rible friend-swal­low­ing plague has fin­ished.

Item two! Last night the 42Below Nation­al Cock­tail Cham­pi­on­ship was held at the Front Room, and we went along to see bar­tenders from all over the coun­try com­pete to see who’d get to rep­res­ent New Zea­l­and at the Cock­tail World Cup in Queen­stown. Two bar­tenders from Wel­ling­ton made the cut – Guy Jac­ob­son from Hip­po­pot­amus Bar, and  Gian­carlo Jesus from the Hawthorn Lounge, along with Barney Toy from Suite Bar, Auck­land.

Each bar­tender had sev­en minutes to serve up a cock­tail and enter­tain the crowd. You could hear how nervous they were, but the res­ult­ing drinks were deli­cious.  We left before the judging was announced because the Front Room was freeeeeeez­ing, but it’s always nice to see very skilled people doing good work. We can­’t help but won­der though where are the female bar­tenders? The mag­ni­fi­cent Sally from Mighty was in the audi­ence, but there were no women on stage  or in the video from 2010’s com­pet­i­tion.  Ahh well, in lieu of females, here are two of the win­ning cock­tail recipes, so you can recre­ate them at home, or per­haps just bowl along to Hip­po­pot­amus or Hawthorn Lounge and order your­self one.

Guy Jacobson – “The Big Bad Wolf”

30 ml 42BELOW Manuka Honey
10 ml 42BELOW Pure
35 ml VSOP Cal­va­dos
15 ml ginger extract
7 ml simple syr­up
75 ml fresh lapsang shouchong tea

Com­bine all ingredi­ents in a teapot and serve in tea cups gar­nished with a twist of lem­on, and a tooth­pick
with an apple fan dehyd­rated kiwi fruit and black­berry. Short­bread dipped in chocol­ate bis­cuits on the side.
Served hot

Giancarlo Jesus – “The Doctor’s Swedish Remedy”

30 ml 42BELOW Manuka Honey
5 ml 42BELOW Pure
5 ml Swedish Pun­sch
2 drops homemade pine bit­ters
5 drops whisky bar­rel aged bit­ters
20 ml bar­rel aged Ver­mouth

Stir, strained with a lem­on peel squeezed over the top and dis­carded.