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.