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Slideshow
The week in pictures
Celebs are usually better known for booze partnerships, but this week Man of Steel star Henry Cavill has partnered with herbaceous fizzy drink label No.1 Rosemary Water.
Cavill joined No. 1 Rosemary Water in filming a documentary about rosemary’s health benefits, and has also become a business partner in the brand with a long-term equity stake.
Announcing the partnership on Instagram, the actor added that the water “also goes pretty darn well in a Vodka Martini, which is less supportive of memory in large doses, but is quite fun.”
It was a full house at the Jumeriah Carlton Towers for the official launch of Chestertons Polo in the Park on Wednesday evening. It was a packed to the rafters with guests wanting to meet this year’s crop of Polo players – from as far a field as Australia – to local London favourites.
Being the event’s official Champagne sponsor, Lanson was the drink of choice for the day.
In what is the most Mayfair piece of information we’ve received this week, our spies said that guests got through “gallons” of the stuff, as well as gin and whisky cocktails late into the night, before heading off to Mahiki.
Justine McGovern (left) and Damien Jackman (right) of the California Wine Institute got to hang out with the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’, Jordan Belfort, in London this week. During his time in town, Belfort revealed his secrets to successful selling during a dinner at M steakhouse in Victoria to a room full of City traders and wine merchants. He believes the best way to shift more wine is to sell the lifestyle.
In broadcast news, BBC Radio 4’s On Your Farm recorded an episode at Hogs Back Brewery near Farnham this week. The programme, reporting on the brewery’s newly-expanded hop garden and plans to build a new hop kiln, will be aired on 19 May.
Earlier this year, we learned that Graham Norton is launching his own pink gin.
Graham Norton Blends His Pink GiN! from Invivo Wines on Vimeo.
Well this week the TV presenter was busy blending it at Ireland’s West Cork Distillery alongside his business partners at NZ drinks company Invivo, Tim Lightbourne and Rob Cameron, as well as master distiller Dierhdre Bohane. The team at Invivo sent us this exclusive sneak peak at Norton’s crash course in botanicals.
In “why, though?”, a Frenchman has finished crossing Atlantic in a completely unpowered three-metre long ‘wine barrel’, sustained in part by drinking Sauternes.
The 72 year-old former-paratrooper Jean-Jacques Savin spent 127 days adrift on the ocean’s currents in his craft ‘Le Vagabond‘.
Savin set off from the Canary Island in December last year, but after crossing into the Caribbean he was blown back east by trade winds for a few days.
He was later picked up by a passing Dutch oil tanker which took him to the island of St Eustatius last Sunday, and the end of his journey.
As well as the fish he caught, he lived off desalinated water and tinned and freeze-dried food, but did lift his spirits with an occasional glass of Sauternes.
Distiller Archie Rose has released a limited edition spirit based on the popular Australian condiment Vegemite, said to replicate the flavour of the yeast-based, umami-rich spread slathered on buttered sourdough toast.
Called the ArchieMite Buttered Toast Spirit, it has been distilled with uncultured Pepe Saya dairy butter and Sonoma bakery sourdough toast.
North London-based brewer Beavertown is hosting an event to encourage more people to sign up as blood donors by giving away free pints of its Bloody Ell’ Blood Orange IPA.
The London brewery is giving away its fruity beer to the first 500 people who visit its taproom from 2pm on Saturday 25 May who can prove they have signed up to be a blood donor.
On 23rd February 1900, part of Pol Roger’s cellars and the buildings collapsed, causing the loss of five hundred casks and 1.5 million bottles.
Now we know that Champagne often benefits from longer ageing, but French estate Pol Roger has taken its thirst for complex fizz to unusual extremes.
The house is planning to use a robot to reach a stash of Champagne trapped beneath its cellars since 1900.
The Champagne became sealed off in an underground cellar in February 1900, when, after heavy rains, Pol Roger’s cellar on the Avenue de Champagne in Epernay caved in.
However, Pol Roger unearthed 26 bottles of in-tact Champagne in February 2018, which are believed to come from the 1898 vintage, having used sonar technology to detect a cavity beneath the producer’s site.
Laurent d’Harcourt, president of the house, also db that it was highly likely there was more nineteenth century Champagne lurking beneath the ground level, and that the winery has spent the past year enlisting various “specialists” to look at the possibility of excavating deeper into Pol Roger’s historic underground cellars.
British Airways is celebrating is centenary with some additions to its in-flight menu including a gin designed to be consumed at altitude and an English still wine bottled exclusively for the airline.
Jason Criag, global-brand director of Highland Park, joins Patricia Retson who recently retired from the distillery to open the Highland Park store.
Tenuous Brand Tie-in of the Week goes to single malt whisky brand Highland Park, which marked International Viking Day on Wednesday with the opening of its new customer experience store in Kirkwall, Orkney.
International Viking Day, which is a real thing, is regarded as the date when our Viking ancestors would shed their winter clothes and prepare their ships for travel for the year ahead.
Jason Craig, global brand director, Highland Park, joined Patricia to mark the occasion with a reading of a traditional Viking poem. Jason Craig, said: “We’re excited to open the doors to our new shop and share even more of our world with our visitors. It felt fitting, on a day believed to be about embarking on new adventures for our Nordic ancestors, that we’ve embarked on ours.”