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Slideshow
Week in pictures
London has opened.
Bars, pubs and restaurants were allowed to open from last weekend (4 July), and all over the city beer gardens were dusted off to welcome the public.
In London Bridge, Vinegar Yard boasts that it is the city’s largest outdoor beer garden. It reopened last weekend with new additions including table reservations with drinks packages for groups of up to six people, and two new mezzanine cocktail bars.
And from today, restaurant chain Dishoom’s venues in Shoreditch, King’s Cross, Carnaby Street and Manchester are also open for service. Walk-ins are available, but bookings are encouraged.
All cafés will observe the usual opening hours, providing patrons with breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night snacks.
Another new(ish) kid on the block is the UK’s first bar dedicated entirely to orange wine.
Silver Lining in Hackney has rebranded as a specialist orange wine bar when it reopened for business on Wednesday, following an ease of lockdown measures in England.
Meanwhile in the US, some venues are getting creative with social distancing.
Hotel Trio in Healdsburg, California has said its wine-delivering room service robot called Rosé has transitioned “from a novelty to a necessity” due to Covid-19.
Rosé, a three-foot robot which uses sensors to travel in the hotel’s lifts and corridors, can deliver groceries, towels and even pet treats to guests.
The automated delivery bot, which has been working at the hotel since 2018, has come into its own after social distancing regulations were put in place.
In more tech innovations, rum brand Bacardi has launched a new Snapchat lens to help people keep a minimum 1 metre distance when back in their local.
Once activated, as users approach the 1 metre distance, the Snapchat lens responds showing how much further they need to stand back to maintain that social distance. Once the distance is met, they will be “digitally transported to a Caribbean island celebration” with the addition of sunglasses, and palm trees.
In celeb wines, Cameron Diaz is launching a ‘clean’ wine brand in collaboration with entrepreneur Katherine Power.
Called Avaline, the range comprises of two organic wines – a Spanish white and a French rosé, which went on sale across the US this week.
Made with organic grapes grown in Penedès in northern Spain, the white is a blend of Macabeo, Malvasia and Xarel·lo, which are best known for being used in the production of Cava. Crisp, dry and delicate, it is said to offer refreshing aromas of citrus and stone fruit.
Today @Keir_Starmer stopped off at our Towerhill Bar & picked up some Barnard Castle Eye Test.
He also thanked us for helping in the national effort against coronavirus by making free hand sanitiser.
Thanks for the support Keir & enjoy the beer. pic.twitter.com/nkjsNt0E4y
— James Watt (@BrewDogJames) July 6, 2020
In politics, Labour leader Keir Starmer used a visit to a Brewdog bar this week to pose with a beer poking fun at Dominic Cummings.
Called Barnard Castle Eye Test, the limited edition IPA was named via a public vote, shortly after news broke that Cummings had broken his government’s own lockdown rules.
Starmer visited a Brewdog bar in Tower Hill, east London, to pose with a can of Barnard Castle Eye Test and pour himself a pint for the cameras. Watt then posted it to his 67,000 Twitter followers.
Edinburgh Gin is bringing back its Filled with Wonder campaign in Scotland this summer.
The campaign, which launched in December, primarily focused on its first-ever TV advert, set in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh Gin will amplify the campaign throughout Scotland over the summer months – with different versions of the video clip, PR and social support, and an online and in-store programme for Tesco and Sainbury’s stores across the country.
24/06/20…Tennents brewery Glasgow, dedicated to you campaign.
In more Scottish marketing news, beer brand Tennent’s is supporting the on-trade as it prepares to reopen by supplying complimentary kegs to 2,000 licensed premises around the country.
Tennent’s will also hand over a free pint to consumers in the participating outlets. The initiative was launched alongside a specially created video featuring famous Scottish bars including Glasgow’s Pot Still, Blackbird in Edinburgh and Abandon Ship in Dundee.
The video will run in a TV set to air on 15 July, when Scotland’s bars can open in earnest, across STV, Channel 4 and Sky TV.
In Stay at Home, a man in Shropshire has won an award for his crafting the UK’s best home bar.
On-trade leisure company Liberty Games launched a competition last month to find the UK’s best home bar, and asked people to send in pictures of their handiwork.
Lee Morris, a homebrewer from Albrighton, Shropshire, beat the competition with his well-made, and eco-friendly home pub.
The pub also contains a log burner, dartboard, cable TV, drums and leather sofas
Slingsby Gin has launched a new interactive experience for Gin lovers to enjoy from their sofa, which includes a tasting, the history of the Slingsby brand, and some genuinely quite interesting Gin facts for your next Zoom quiz.
For example, did you know gin used to be mixed with gunpowder and set alight to “prove” its strength?
The 90-minute tasting session will be available to book every weekend and hosted by an expert Slingsby Gin mixologist.
In competitions, New Zealand wine brand, Villa Maria, is running a consumer promotion to bring the Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards to life.
One winner will have a luxury BAFTA viewing experience delivered to them at home on 31 July to enjoy in their own garden. The prize promises a star-studded screening and a selection of Villa Maria’s wines.
On Wednesday (8 July), Los Angeles’ Faith & Flower took part in the global Oxley Team Labs Series, where cocktail slingers all over the world compete online to create the best serves from whatever they can get their hands on at home.
Taking up the gauntlet previously laid down by London’s Lyaness and Employees Only in New York, the team fashioned a set of cocktails from ingredients/tools available to them at home using gin supplied by spirits label Oxley.