Cocktails in the City – sample Leeds’ best bars under one roof
and live on Freeview channel 276
One of the UK’s biggest cocktail festivals – featuring 20 of the city’s top bars in pop-up form –the two-night extravaganza of innovative mixology and street food takes place on Friday and Saturday, February 21 and 22, 5pm to 11pm
BUY TICKETS: Entry tickets – over 18s only – start at £6.50, with cocktails available at the event priced £6.50. For tickets and information visit www.cocktailsinthecity.com/events/leeds.
It follows the sell-out success of last year’s event.
This cocktail lovers’ paradise will feature trendsetting new drinks created exclusively by leading Leeds bartenders.
Add in some tasting and blending sessions, music and entertainment, and cocktails fans will definitely want to be part of the mix.
The 2020 Line-Up includes Be At One, Blackhouse, Blind Tyger, The Botanist, The Domino, EightyEight at Grantley Hall, El Gato Negro, Harvey Nichols Fourth Floor Bar, Hedonist, House of Fu, Jake's Bar & Still Room, Liquor Studio, Lost and Found, Manahatta, Norton Bar & Courtyard at Grantley Hall, The Maven, Poison Cocktail Lounge, Sky Lounge, Stylist Loves Laurent-Perrier Champagne Bar, Tattu.
From five-star hotels to secret speakeasies, many of the city’s most popular hospitality providers will come together, including Jake’s Bar and Still Room, with more than 15 years’ experience of cocktail artistry, and the elegant Grantley Hall, which opened just last year.
Also in attendance will be the on-trend Chinese restaurant and bar Tattu, and Leeds favourites Below Stairs and The Botanist.
Each pop up bar at the event will create a unique range of sumptuous drinks exclusively for the festival, with something to suit all tastes.
From escape games to espresso martinis, après ski to high afternoon tea, Cocktails in the City is working closely with every participating bar to put on a unique drinking experience.
Highlights will include a champagne cocktail created by the city’s leading female bartenders on the Stylist Loves Laurent-Perrier Champagne Bar; signature recipes from New York-inspired Leeds joints Neighbourhood – with its light, delicate and floral concoction, Spring is Coming – and Manahatta, which proudly presents its Yorkshire Royal.
The new Liquor Studio, Leeds’ first drinks lab and gin school, is a one-stop-shop for those keen to know all there is about the increasingly popular spirit.
Lucky festival goers will get the chance to blend their own gin and learn more about their palette in the laboratory’s blending room. Discover for yourself how each botanical can completely change and shape the drink’s flavour.
Experiences running throughout will include complimentary Escape Room taster sessions, run by Escape Hunt Leeds, down in the depths of the 19th-century venue, while city speakeasy The Maven will conjour up a period-styled apothecary in theVictorian cells.
In addition, a collaboration between Harvey Nichols Fourth Floor Bar and Jägermeister will see ice-cold serves and hot cocktails on offer in an après ski lodge.
Interactive tasting journeys hosted by some of Leeds hidden gems, Poison Cocktail Lounge and Blind Tyger. A series of two fifteen-minute interactive masterclasses to discover the tastes and techniques of cocktail making in partnership with world-leading brands.
There will also be live music with secret jazz and blues bar The Domino Club taking over the Town Hall’s crypt with a big brass band. Meanwhile, Paul Dunphy – aka The Gentleman DJ – will drop the best disco and soul sounds upstairs.
Food will be available from exciting new Park Row restaurant El Gato Negro Tapas, which will present an array of traditional Spanish flavours and ingredients.
The team behind the contemporary grill restaurant Ox Club plan to bring back its House of Fu takeover, to tempt festival goers with gyoza.
Enjoy afternoon tea with Blackhouse as they deliver a range of very British drinks using a range of artisan teas in partnership with Slingsby including their newly released Marmalade Edition, rhubarb and gooseberry.
Futurize your cocktail drinking experience with augmented reality as Be At One showcase their new AI cocktails in partnership with Bombay Sapphire or get behind the bar and get your flair on.
Launched in 2012, Cocktails in the City has welcomed over 50,000 cocktail enthusiasts through the doors with events hosted around the UK and occasionally in LA.
Working in partnership with the country’s leading bars and world-leading drinks brands, Cocktails in the City is on a mission to raise the awareness of the skill and professionalism of the modern-day bartender and provide visitors with a unique opportunity to sample the very best of their city’s cocktail culture all under one roof.
From the latest cocktail trends, new and unusual flavour combinations and unique drinking experiences Cocktails in the City is a drinks festival like no other.
For cocktail recipes, drinks commentary and advice on the newest bars and latest trends, Cocktails in the City can provide insight, imagery, content and contacts for journalists writing about cocktail culture and the night-time economy within the UK and abroad.
COCKTAIL RECIPE: Yorkshire Royal – check out this exotic, full-bodied and floral cocktail created for the event by Manahatta. Mix 85ml Laurent-Perrier Cuvée Rosé, 7.5ml hibiscus syrup, 7.5ml pinot noir, reduced down with hibiscus flowers, Yorkshire tea and rose water and 25ml Noir foam.
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