London Cocktail Week 2022 | A delicious blend of pop ups & experiences
London Cocktail Week is something of a misleading name.
First of all, it takes place over 11 days.
Second, it involves bars from all over the world.
And third, there’s nothing weak about these cocktails.
This year happens to be the LCW’s 13th birthday (only five more years until it can finally drink!). So what can we expect on such an illustrious occasion? Well, as usual you’ll need to snag one of their £10 digital Festival Passes in order to access all the fun, which is broken down into three main categories:
The Cocktails
The pearlescent ‘Stir Me’ from Sketch
So we’ll start with an obvious one – the cocktails. The idea is simple: you buy an e-ticket for £15. You then waltz into any of the 300 bars that are participating across the city, and they’ll give you a London Cocktail Week wristband. This is your golden ticket. Wave it around at any of the participating bars, and you’ll be entitled to special, one-off £7 cocktail. And trust us when we say all of the best bars in town are in on it – you can get a Stir Me from Sketch (butterfly pea tea, tequila, kumquat); a Mai Chai at Mr Fogg’s Society of Exploration (whiskey, chai syrup, orange bitters); and a BKE at Murder Inc. ( Cognac, maple-peach liqueur, and “exceedingly dry cider”) to pluck but a few names from the voluminous hat.
Then there are…
The Cocktail Villages
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What started back in the day as one small pop up bar soon became an entire cocktail village, which has now metamorphasised into four entire cocktail villages. You’ll find them Borough Yards, Covent Garden, Devonshire Square, and Eccleston Yards, and each one will have four or five unique pop up bars of their own, all of which will be serving cocktails for just £7 a pop. Depending on where you end up, you might find Mirror Margaritas, immersive tequila tastings, cocktail busses, and candlelit rum shacks.
And finally, there are…
The Events
Pop ups. Masterclasses. Bar takeovers. Dinners. Gigs. You’ll find them all.
Among all the dozens and dozens of events taking place, you can – for example – indulge in a little flower arranging while tasting Japanese gin; feast on a tequila paired dinner on a Shoreditch rooftop; take a whiskey barrel blending class; learn how to develop photos the old fashioned way (while drinking old fashioneds); take a jaunt through central London on an Irish coffee bus-tour; and witness a hands-on demo of how to create drinks using only discarded & otherwise wasted materials.
Which is all quite a cocktail in itself.
NOTE: London Cocktail Week takes place from 13th-23rd of October 2022, in venues across London. You can find out more, see the full lineup of events, and get your festival pass (£15) right HERE.
Like being in the loop about London’s newest bar and restaurant openings? Check out our excellent guide to recently opened restaurants & bars in London.