Sip Or Mix

After our very successful series of Sip Or Mix Masterclasses in March with Master Distiller Ted Breaux we are pleased to announce a few additional dates in April and May. Ted will take us through the History and Mystery of Absinthe while we taste all four Jade Absinthes and La Maison Fontaine. We will then taste the very unique Jade Perique Tobacco Liqueur also made by Ted Breaux. This will all be finished off with a tasting of the brand new pimento bitters made by Ted Breaux for Dale DeGroff. If you would like to attend any of the events below please email jenny@sipormix.com or contact the venue directly.

24th April – 3.30pm-5.30pm Bartender Masterclass, Paramount

25th April – 3.30p,-5.30pm Bartender Masterclass, Karpo

26th April – Afternoon – in-store tasting, The Whisky Exchange

30th April – 3-5pm – Bartender Masterclass, Nightjar
                     – 7pm onwards – Members Monday, this event is for discerning drinkers who are members of the public and are interested in learning more about their libations. If you would like to sign up for this event please email info@barnightjar.com  

1st May – 3pm, Bartender Masterlcass, Wax Jambu

2nd May – Afternoon – Bartender Masterclass, Brighton
                  – Evening – Consumer Masterclass, Brighton
Both of these events are hosted by Mixology Group If you would like to attend please email myles@mixologygroup.co.uk
 
3rd May – Afternoon – in-store tasting – Gerry’s

Sunday is F.B.I. (Food and Beverage Industry) Night at The Zetter Townhouse and on the 18th March we were lucky enough to have Ted Breaux along. We had some Absinthe and Jade Perique Tobacco Liqueur available for tasting and met lots of really great people. We then went back on the 19th for a Bartender Masterclass in the afternoon. We would like to thank The Zetter Townhouse enormously for such enjoyable events! Special thanks goes out to Kamil, Cami, Chris, Nico and Ben.

We would like to thank everyone for their support during 2011 and take this opportunity to share a few of the things we are looking forward to in 2012.

SW4 London Dry Gin
In December we had the first ever batch of SW4 London Dry Gin 47% available. Martin Price the Brand Owner came to The Whisky Exchange in London to talk to customers and sign bottles for the lucky few who laid their hands on a bottle. We are pleased to announce Martin will be putting the 47% into production, probably late Spring, in 2012. We are also looking forward to more regional availability of the 40% and some very exciting new listings for this “Uncommonly Clapham” Gin! For further info please visit: http://www.sw4gin.com/

La Maison Fontaine Absinthe
During 2011 the Absinthe category went from strength to strength and we don’t see that changing anytime soon. If anything, we predict 2012 to be even more important for the category with Absinthe becoming far more mainstream and less misunderstood.  The people behind La Maison Fontaine are an incredibly creative lot, for example just take a look at the ” Art of Imagination” on the website: http://www.fontaineabsinthe.com
They have some very exciting plans and although we can’t reveal too much we are confident La Maison Fontaine will be a positive force for change and a leading light in the Absinthe world in 2012.

St Nicholas Abbey Rum
It was lovely to have the Warrens over from Barbados in October for RumFest and of course we will all be back again for RumFest 2012. However, we have something else to look forward to before October and that is the launch of the estate produced, unaged, white Rum! We have some available for tasting and so far everyone who has tried it has loved it and we can tell you it makes an absolutely awesome Daiquiri! We will keep you posted on the New Rum developments, meanwhile you can always have a browse of the St Nicholas Abbey website: http://www.stnicholasabbey.com/

Jade Liqueurs
We are very excited by the prospect of a couple of new products due to come from the Jade stables in 2012. Naturally we cannot tell you too much… other than there will be a new Liqueur and a new, reverse engineered, Absinthe…. exciting indeed! The other good news to come from the Jade stable is we have Ted Breaux himself coming to visit us in the UK this Spring. We will be organising some meet and greet seminars for both the trade and consumers alike and appreciate that having such a formidable Absintheur in our midst can only be good for the category. http://www.bestabsinthe.com/

Goodness it’s been a while since we updated.  We’ve been busy!  Art Events, London Fashion Week, Boutique Wineries Show, more Art Events, Rumfest, Oxjam….. the list goes on…..  This Halloween weekend we have lots of things planned with the Sip or Mix Absinthe Portfolio:

Friday 28th we will be in http://www.buenavistacafe.co.uk
Pre-Castro Cuba had a considerable history of Absinthe production and it was from Cuba that Hemmingway famously quoted “Got tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks. Great success shooting the knife underhand into the piano.” We’ll need the piano at Buena Vista Cafe on Friday for the live music, so forget the knife tricks but you could pop in to have a taste of some really great Absinthe!

Saturday 29th Daytime we will be in Gerry’s in Old Compton Street with a special offer on La Maison Fontaine 20cl’s and for the first time in Gerry’s we will have Jade on tasting with the 20cl’s available to buy! The 20cl size is a great way to extend your Absinthe collection at home while you decide which 70cl you just can’t do without!

Saturday 29th Evening – after the great success and fun we had at Oxjam in the Crooked Well, Camberwell we are going back for more…. http://thecrookedwell.com/

We are very lucky in London to have such an active and creative Drinks Industry.  We are also very lucky to have such a varied and well informed Drinks Industry Press Corps.  Just as every decent bar, brand, wholesaler and distributor succeeds in finding  that niche point of difference, so do our industry press.  Bar Magazine has been around for about 10 years and offers a paper publication with an electronic version as well as an active blog.

Here’s the on-line edition:

Bar Magazine

Sip or Mix is grateful for a mention of Jade Absinthe on page 21 and also the Perique Tobacco Liqueur piece on page 44.  (June 2011)

We’ve been doing a lot of work in the Absinthe category and this is reflected in this Bar Magazine Blog Post:

http://barmagazine.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/absinthe-reviving-the-green-fairy-in-the-uk/

If you would like to find out more about Jade Liqueurs or La Maison Fontaine Absinthe, please get in touch: jenny@sipormix.com

If you have an interesting bar, brand or drinks story – I suggest you get in touch with: bar@cimltd.co.uk

Cheers,

Jenny

Well, it’s less than a week to go before Sip Or Mix officially starts trading (or should that read incurring debts!) and things are shaping up nicely!

I’m very pleased to have some of my most favourite brands on board!

St Nicholas Abbey was the first brand I looked after and it just wouldn’t feel right to be operating without it.  We’ll be back with the barrel at RumFest this year and we have the roll out of the 8 Year Old and 12 Year Old, in the not too distant future, to look forward to.  Taking a little longer will be the SNA estate produced rum, hopefully showing a 3 Year Old age statement…

La Maison Fontaine is also a brand I’ve become very attached to since managing from last September.  Absinthe is an extremely interesting category and often very misunderstood.  It’s been a pleasure to work closely with the Brand Owners, the Industry and many creative types along the way.  I’m looking forward to keeping up the good work!

Sw4 Gin is a new brand for me and has already received a lot of respect from the industry.  “The Gin of Champions” as someone pointed out to me only yesterday.  Without Park Place Drinks none of this would have happened quite so easily or as quickly and for that, I’m very grateful and can’t wait to get stuck in.  Look out Clapham!

Jade Liqueurs is a range new to the UK and should shake things up a bit.  Absinthe is an expanding category in the UK, indeed the world, and it’s only right that we should have access to historically correct, vintage styles that put the record straight.  T. A. Breaux’s Perique Tobacco Liqueur is also a gem which addresses the recent (and ongoing) debate about the toxicity of tobacco infusions, as well as preserving an historical tradition which dates back to the indigenous indians of Louisiana.

If you would like to know any more about the brands in the Sip or Mix portfolio, perhaps a tasting and some training, please feel free to email me:

jenny@sipormix.com

I have now realised the hardest part of starting a new website/business is choosing the name.  I spent quite some time researching the best way to come up with a name, I learned a lot.  Don’t be too specific was some good advice – you may want to branch out.  Don’t be geographical – you may want to move.  Do think about using your name, do go for a dot com for added credibility, make it easy to spell, pronounce…

I came up with a long list of possible names, many of which had already been taken, I was so stumped I even asked my friends and family to come up with a name for me… most of which were hilarious rather than actually usable… www.gardenerstipple.com for example was one – I could just imagine it being misheard, misspelled and generally being misunderstood.  www.jenonit.com was another suggestion which didn’t quite give over the right impression.  I came up with things like www.artofalcohol.com, www.spiritsbyartisans.com, www.artisinalalchemy.com – you get the picture.  All of which seemed a bit wordy and some drinks peeps were even a bit baffled by them….

So, welcome to www.sipormix.com – it roughly explains what the site is about, it’s easy to spell, it’s non geographical, there’s room for expansion and it was available.  I hope you like it!

JG