London Cocktail Week 2019: Everything You Need to Know

London Cocktail Week 2019 is the week in the year when we all get to relax with a signature drink and make a toast to the good people who keep the capital's cocktail scene lively, refreshing and completely mixed up. Here's our guide, including...

• How you can get £6 signature cocktails at over 300 different cocktail bars around London
• Where to find The Cocktail Village—the pop up centre of the entire festival—and what's on the menu there
• And what kind of Special Events will be taking place across the week-long (well, actually 10 days this year...you can find why that is too below) festival

What is it?

London Cocktail Week 2019 is a huge event paying tribute to mixed drinks long and short and in-between. It’s a week of celebration of the capital’s thriving cocktail culture, with signature cocktails served at cut-price prices across many of the city’s premier nightspots—around 300 in total. There’s a pop-up centre for celebrations too, a collection of over 40 bars and street food vendors located in the heart of Brick Lane. All that revelry will be soundtracked by incredible DJ sets creating a real late-summer party atmosphere. And finally, a number of special events will be cropping up all over town, from cocktail masterclasses to parties and pop-up bars.

When is it?

London Cocktail Week 2019 kicks off on Friday 4th October and finishes up on Sunday 13th. Yep, to celebrate 10 years of the festival, the 2019 event is spread across 10 whole days, meaning you’ve got even more time to take in the capital’s best cocktail bars to enjoy cut-price creations from some of the country’s top mixologists.

How Can I Get Involved?

Get your £10 ticket here. This is the general ticket for the whole festival, giving you access to discounted drinks across the city, the London Cocktail Week 2019 pop-up in East London, and some of the special events. You just flash it on your phone as you are ordering at one of the 300+ participating bars and clubs, or when you arrive at the Brick Lane pop-up. There are three strands to London Cocktail Week 2019. Let’s take a closer look at what there is to look forward to...

The Cocktail Tours

This aspect of London Cocktail Week 2019 sees 300+ bars each serve their own signature cocktail, dreamt up especially for the festival. Each bar’s signature cocktail will be available for just £6, which is a huge saving only available for those who’ve bought the £10 festival ticket. Just show the bar staff your festival pass on your phone, and let them serve up something special. This part of the festival is really all about getting out there and discovering special cocktail places in your neighbourhood, or perhaps in a part of London you haven’t explored before. As such, it’s a good idea to check the festival website and find out just which cocktail bars are taking part in the area you want to explore. You can see the full line up of registered cocktail bars here. Click on ‘Near Me’ in the top right to get a very helpful map of proceedings. And, in the spirit (ho hum) of the whole 10 day event, the team behind London Cocktail Week 2019 have put together a number of specialised routes (classy pub crawls, basically) taking in areas such as Covent Garden, Soho and Shoreditch. And they’ve also created some crawls which focus on different ingredients, instead of neighbourhoods. For a taste, here are their lists of bars serving drinks showcasing Chilean Pisco and Brazilian Cachaça. [caption id="attachment_4735" align="alignnone" width="1590"]

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The Cocktail Village

The designated centre of London Cocktail Week 2019. The Cocktail Village collects together over 40 pop up bars, each serving their own signature cocktail. There’ll be some classic drinks available, with esteemed brands such as Suntory Whiskey, Disaronno and Maker’s Mark (who are teaming up with Crosstown Doughnuts...we'll just let that sink in) bringing a real sense of class and quality to the occasion. But the cocktail scene in London is nothing without plucky upstarts, so get ready to meet your new favourite beverage maker. You can see the full list of Cocktail Village bars here. The Cocktail Village is putting on a party, and they’ve really thought of everything. What are a bunch of hyped up cocktail-quaffers going to want as they move onto drink number 3 or 4? Food. And London Cocktail Week 2019 haven’t just bought a couple sharing bags of Kettle Chips, a few party rings and said, ‘Be done with it.’ No, they’ve invited some of the biggest names in London street food to come and fill you up. The Babek Brothers are here, serving up their inimitable kebabs, which are a few cuts above the usual 4am sloping back from the club stuff. Fundi Pizza are firing up their wood fired ovens, Dos Mas Tacos will be doing what they do best, and Phung Kay Vegan will be winning over everyone within seeing/smelling distance with their vegan takes on dim sum classics. There are plenty of other stalls, vans and trucks coming too, so check the full list here. With music, an outdoor location right in the East End and a number of interactive bits (including a super special gin sauna), The Cocktail Village really is the heart of London Cocktail Week 2019.

Special Events

Rounding off the different, complementary elements of London Cocktail Week 2019, rather like a dash of lime or a grating of nutmeg, is the Special Events programme. Some of these events are entirely free to attend with your London Cocktail Week 2019 wristband. Others cost extra. But there’s a great selection of both paid and free events to get your imagination going and your hands shaking (a cocktail shaker in excitement). There are around 100 events taking place in total, and it’s an incredibly varied line-up. For instance, The Well by La Maison Wellness are taking over the London Cocktail Week Covent Garden pop up on 6th October, putting on free non-alcoholic cocktail masterclasses and a number of interesting talks. Whiskey makers Copper Dog are putting on a night of free live music and dancing at Lady Abercorn’s, close to Liverpool St. The Botanist Gin have teamed up with chef Nick Weston to create an imaginative five-course menu at Carousel, under the name Wild Dinner. And there’s an exclusive tasting evening being held at Black Rock Tasting Room, conducted by master of all things whisky Colin Dunn. And that’s just the tip of the ice cube. To see the full list of Special Events taking place, head here. [caption id="attachment_4732" align="alignnone" width="1000"]

drinkup.london[/caption] Do you sometimes enjoy a little history with your alcoholic beverages? So do we.