Amid recent and upcoming competitions, Birmingham has become the toast of the cocktail industry; a returning cocktail festival opens the doors to the city's flourishing bar scene.
Local business owners proudly tell me about how in the past few years, Birmingham has become a hub for award-winning bartenders, training opportunities, and extraordinary drinks. Jacob Clarke and Katie Rouse of Couch and Matt Arnold of Passing Fancies were all finalists of World Class Great Britain, with Arnold winning and advancing to the global finals. Both bars (and others in Birmingham) are among the Top 50 Cocktail Bars in the UK.
July 2023 marked the 9th year of Birmingham Cocktail Weekend (BCW), where attendees can purchase a £5 wristband for access to £5 signature cocktails and other deals across town. Some venues also host masterclasses and tastings—often centred around a particular spirit—for the occasion. I reached out to Alex Nicholson-Evans, founder and director of Living for the Weekend, the company behind BCW, to learn more about the event: in the last decade, BCW has grown from "a handful of venues" and about 1,000 attendees to over 40 venues and more than 3,000 attendees.
"Our events are all designed to connect people with places, brands, simple pleasures and of course each other!" says Nicholson-Evans. "In the case of [BCW], we wanted to give people a route to discover the bars of Birmingham, to experience new flavours and to enjoy some delicious cocktails with fellow cocktail lovers." Birmingham’s bartenders confirm that they enjoy BCW because they always get people visiting their venues for the first time—and we are lucky to have an event dedicated to discovering Birmingham’s vibrant cocktail world.
If you're starting your Second City bar crawl early in the day, you can take the short bus ride from Birmingham New Street to Edgbaston for lunch at Chapter Edgbaston or Smoke and Ash. Chapter’s £5 special for BCW was the Bord de Mer (with a Pas de Mer mocktail option), a sea-breezy cocktail made with Edinburgh Seaside Gin. "I noticed a lack of gin cocktails last year for BCW so I wanted to give people a nice change from the usual whiskey [and] rum cocktails," says Alex Wilson, the assistant bar manager at Chapter. "I also used some homemade pineapple syrup and fresh [local] raspberries that really elevated the cocktail and made it perfect for our sunny terrace."
The local and homemade elements of the cocktails are characteristic of Chapter’s dedication to using sustainably sourced ingredients in their food and beverages, provided by producers from around the British Isles. Just across the street from Chapter is Smoke and Ash, the pizza, wine, and cocktail bar opened by Paul and Clare Collins a little less than a year ago. I adored the house chilli and yuzu margarita, which they recommended to pair with a quattro formaggi (my favourite pizza) because "[it] would cut through the rich cheese flavours perfectly."
During BCW, people also find their way into venues specializing in other niches of food and drink—such as Grain & Glass, the rustic whisky bar in the Jewellery Quarter owned by Amy Seton, who has worked in the whisky category for over a decade. There you will see a chalkboard keeping count of "whisky converts," and cocktails may be responsible for some of those tally marks. "When I first opened the bar in 2018," says Seton, "it wasn’t actually my intention to have a cocktail list because I don’t come from a cocktail background, and slowly we realized it was really important," because people who don’t think of themselves as whisky drinkers might try a whisky cocktail.
Grain & Glass served a Black Forest Old Fashioned with Benromach 10 for BCW, but when I visited, I had a classic whisky sour of rich Maker’s Mark interspersed with sweet and sour flavours. Other connoisseurs also made an appearance: Arch 13 at Connolly’s is a wine bar which served a Highland Park, Oloroso Sherry, and mint cocktail for the weekend. Medicine Bakery is normally just that—a bakery and café—but hosts "Medicine Nights" with craft cocktails. In fact, Medicine’s signature Pharmacist’s Blend was voted the Best Cocktail of BCW by wristband wearers this year.
As your laidback day turns into a boozy night, return to the city centre for a taste of the nightlife—or walk a little further to visit Digbeth, where you will find the multi-award-winning Passing Fancies. Launched by Tommy Matthews, Matt Arnold, and Eve Green last year, Passing Fancies has a gorgeous bar—designed by Foresso and made with repurposed waste materials—where patrons gather for delicious concoctions. For BCW, "[we] wanted to present a drink that was very us," says Arnold. "We built a delicious highball that is in essence strawberry and vanilla-like flavours. However, we wanted to challenge the idea of vanilla for people. There's currently a prominent conversation regarding the sustainability of vanilla production and it's likely that vanilla will start becoming more scarce year by year. This is why we used woodruff to be the substitute for vanilla flavouring alongside a delicious Greek product, Axia."
To unwind at the day's end, take a trip out to the suburbs to visit Couch Stirchley* for more top-drawer drinks in an intimate, low-key setting with a diligently crafted playlist. Or, if you are leaving afterwards and prefer to stay near the train station, I recommend Fox and Chance. Co-founded by Callie Thirsk, Blaise Bachelier, and Ryan Smith in 2021, the dark green walls, supremely comfy bar chairs, and menu beautified with illustrations of animals were all very soothing after the craze of the Birmingham city centre on a Saturday night.
Thirsk says that the creation of drinks at Fox and Chance is a collaborative process: "One person has a brilliant idea, pitches it to the team, and everyone pitches in their thoughts and ideas to make it a great drink. Every cocktail goes through lots of iterations, each one with a twist to make it better than the one before, whether it's a garnish or a touch of vermouth, or an adjustment of the volumes of each ingredient." Their BCW special was the Floridita Floozie (Brugal 1888, grapefruit sherbert, cherry liqueur blend, and soda) but their house favourite Irish Coffee was the perfect dessert-like drink at the end of the night.
"In a time when independent hospitality venues are really struggling, it's great to be part of such a thriving community," says Thirsk. "It's also a rewardingly supportive environment to be a part of. Every venue cheers each other on and celebrates one another's successes, but also lifts each other up in the difficult times." One instance she may be referring to is when the city’s bartenders united to save 40 St Paul’s*, following the owner being injured. Additionally, Living for the Weekend holds other events that celebrate the city’s hospitality community, including Birmingham Wine Weekend and Birmingham Restaurant Festival. Amy Seton and her team also created the whisky festival Whisky Birmingham. But these hospitality experts won’t stop there…
Next for the BCW creators is a new cocktail festival in Bristol! "We have lots of learnings and experience from Birmingham," says Nicholson-Evans, "and we’ll use that to ensure the Bristol event is the fantastic celebration of the cocktail scene that city absolutely deserves. But already Bristol Cocktail Weekend has its own shape and I’m excited to see how it evolves!" I personally recommend that you visit The Milk Thistle in Bristol and try a First of Many.
"On a personal note," says Nicholson-Evans, "I get such a thrill from seeing festival go-ers connecting with each other at the event [BCW] and online to chat about which drinks they loved." If you love flavoursome drinks and a tipsy feeling at the end of the night, but also knowing you are among the best in the world where anyone could become the next mixology star and connecting with fellow cocktail enthusiasts, Birmingham Cocktail Weekend is for you!
*Was not a participating venue in Birmingham Cocktail Weekend 2023.
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