The Wine and Spirits Show

Like most people, here at The Amazing Blog, we love to unwind after a long day with a nice drink, and we’re so excited to expand our knowledge at The Wine and Spirits Show returning to London on the 3rd and 4th of April.

After two sold-out shows in 2019, attended by over 1500 people, The Wine and Spirits Show will be back at One Whitehall Palace this spring. The show will feature the best brands in wines and spirits as well as a beer zone, a gin and tonic bar and two free masterclasses on exciting topics, including champagne. Delicious food stands will also be featured at the event. We all know wine and cheese make an excellent pair, and Paxton & Whitfield, official cheese providers to the Queen, will be onsite to offer the perfect cheese pairing to your favourite wine or spirit.

The Wine Hall will highlight international producers, wine regions and wine merchants. The Wine Hall will also showcase award-winning wines judged by Masters of Wine in the prestigious Global Masters competitions. 

The other hall featured at the show, The Spirits Hall, will offer everything from gin and whiskey to tequila, rum and mezcal. Both halls include a New Products Zone showcasing popular wines and spirits launched within the last year, keeping attendees up to date with trends and new releases. Also included in the show is a Global Beer Zone where guests will have the chance to sample a wide variety of brews from every style produced all over the world.

Tickets can be purchased for £55.00 here. One Whitehall Palace is located at 1 Whitehall Ct, Westminster, London, SW1A 2EJ. Starting at 14.00 – 20.00 we’re looking forward to an afternoon of sipping some of the best vineyards and distilleries in the world!

BREW//LDN – Beer Festival

With the new year here, it’s time to put yourself out there and part takes in some new activities and perhaps even pick up a skill or two on the way. After all, New Year new you right? Here at The Amazing Blog we researched and found an event to kick start your year in a fun, active and entertaining way! We’d like to introduce to you Brew//LDN.

Brew//LDN is an exciting beer festival on from the 27th – 29th February, 2020 at The Old Truman Brewery, London, showcasing the world’s best brewers, quality street food and a fantastic music programme. It is going to bring together three distinct aspects i.e. Brew//BEER, Brew//MUSIC and Brew//KITCHEN to give you the perfect start to your weekend.

At Brew// BEER is represented by the people who make craft beers, so you can meet and hear their story. With over 150 brewers, cider and spirit producers exhibiting you are sure to see old favourites and discover new ones and enjoy your day as you dance away all your worries while deeply relishing the perfect pint. It supports independents, ethical direction, promBeerotion of diversity in brewing, and we think will be a leading event in the UK beer calendar for years to come.

However, the fun won’t be complete with the sound of your favourite tunes.  Brew//MUSIC is all about the party, and they pride themselves on working with some great talent to create the right backdrop for their festival and giving you melodies to shake your hips and bob your head to.

Lastly, as a part of Brew//KITCHEN, they aim to bring together 8 gourmet street food vendors and 6 carefully selected premium drinks partners to your tummies nice and full as you load up on pint after pint. Brew//KITCHEN collaborates the very best of food and drink for your enjoyment. Missing out on this fun-filled and exciting event will haunt you until the end of time thus, go over to their official website to purchase your tickets online before they all sell out! The prices range from £11.28 to £28. See here.

Sxollie - Cripps Pink Cider

Hustling is not something we would normally advocate here at The Amazing Blog, however when an advertising campaign comes in which is structured around the very essence of a jolly good hustle, we sit up, keyboards poised and channel the inner opportunist. Sxollie is the brand, and their delicious cider is the product which takes no prisoners and proudly promotes a good down to earth hustle.

Now ‘sxollie’ is derived from the english word scallywag, the afrikaans word skorrie-morrie, the dutch word schoelje meaning rascal, and the yiddish word meaning jackal. Quite a heady mix to get our teeth into, but also a highly effective marketing tool to ensure we are sitting up and taking notice, especially since it forms the basis for the philosophy behind Sxollie Cider. ‘In a nutshell’, as they decree, the term Sxollie means ‘hustler’, and its composition is a barrelful of single varietal cider, backed up by the company’s rousing chorus that this is the best cider to come out of Africa.

The interesting part of this approach is that actually the taste of Sxollie is rather refined - elegant almost, which must derive from the Champagne yeasts which are used to ferment their carefully chosen apples from the Elgin orchards of Cape Town. Perhaps the harder edge synopsis of this drink comes from the urban jungle itself which forms an integral ingredient to the finished product? However, that final product is certainly one to take a chance on, as it celebrates with all it’s might it’s African heritage, right down to the pottery design mosaic ‘X’ sprawled across the bottle. We discovered the brand as they were the winners of the International Cider Challenge 2019. There is a trio in the range to try, although we were ONLY sent one bottle Cripps Pink (Pink Lady) - ahem, Sxollie we would have like to have tried more!

Sxollie is available from our high street supermarkets, Waitrose and Sainsburys across the country have them on their shelves, as well as many good independent outlets. Waitrose currently have a 330ml bottle on at £1.85, but if you get your skates on, Sainsbury's have an offer running with bottles priced at £1.60. As the ‘Sxollie philosophy’ tells us - “Pursue that glint in your eye … a little hustle goes a long way”!

Løwlander Winter IPA Beer

At the risk of igniting your fire, The AmazingBlog  is going to mention the ‘C’ word - no, not that one, but with a certain type of pie and pudding now gracing the supermarket aisles, we feel we can mention ‘Christmas’ without too many crossed expletives being hurled into the atmosphere. Too soon? Ok, what if we mention the aftermath of that certain season which will be with us before we know it? Still too much? Ok, let’s expand this to a more general point of what happens to our Christmas Trees once they have decorated our homes so splendidly? Recycling is of course the go-to choice, but what if we were to tell you that you can now actually be drinking your redundant branches in a new beer brought to you by Løwlander, in their delicious new Winter IPA ? Løwlander are quite literally bottling unwanted trees and turning them into an amazing white nectar, affording us the opportunity to enjoy the magic of a certain season all year round!

Løwlander we’ve featured before see here and we’re always impressed with their stylish branding and delicious offerings.  The spruce beer is actually not a new concept, but perhaps in our more enlightened times, the sustainability of such a beverage is ever more poignant. The process appears to be quite a simple one - taking the neglected needles off their branches, brewing them up with those stalwarts of the drinks menu, juniper berries and literally turning waste into something extraordinary - a light beer who’s citrus and hoppy aroma naturally recalls evergreen forests, and much more besides. Aligning the perfect botanical normally saved for the gin label, with the pine needles delivers all kinds of interesting characteristics, and at 5% alcohol, we have a libation to suit all palates.

Being around £2.70 for a 330ml bottle, the cost is also something to celebrate, and at the moment only available from online suppliers, of which there are many – give Beer Wulf  or 31 Dover a try, or indeed Løwlander themselves. If you enjoy an evening at The Botanist or Harvey Nichols in London, why not search out a festive tankard, as it sits proudly on their drinks menu. Scrooge would be proud, and he may have enjoyed the prospect of ‘Christmas Past’ a little more had a bottle of Løwlander’s finest been included!

Silver Swift - Spirited Spritzers

Come rain come shine, weekday or weekend there will always be time for a drink or two at The Amazing Blog. If it’s a celebration in the office, then we like to make life easy by finding a chilled spritzer style mixer stashed away in the fridge. In our search for this very type of tipple, we discovered Silver Swift Spirited Spritzers.

Rose Unwin, the founder of Silver Swift Spirited Spritzers, created this when she (like us) was looking for something quick, ready mixed and unique. In 2017, her mission was to make a delicious ready-to-drink spritzer for those wanting a sophisticated British made cocktail. Since then, Silver Swift has already gained recognition by being awarded a silver for the vodka-based spritzers in the Global Speciality Spirit Masters 2018 and shortlisted for the Great British Food 2018 and for ‘Best Newcomer 2018’ by Speciality Food Magazine.

Silver Swift Spirited Spritzers come in four vibrant flavoured cocktail combinations, and each contains a high-end distilled spirit. The first flavour we tried was Basil Blush Vodka which is a blend of sparkling water, award-winning Brittains Vodka (a Doncaster premium vodka), strawberries and fresh basil. The drink has a sweet pepperiness to the finish and beautiful blush tint in the glass.

Tipsy Iced Tea Vodka also contained Brittains Vodka it is light sparkling drink made of gooseberry, elderflower and earl grey. We like the twist with earl grey which gives it a subtle smoky taste and a tang of iced tea.  

Wild Rose Gin is composed Two Birds’ Old Tom Gin, sparkling water, blackberry and raspberry, rose and a dash of lemon. I think this was our favourite we liked the lingering floral rose flavour.

Lastly, Orchard Pear Gin Tonic is a new addition to the spritzers range. As the name suggests, it is made up of sparkling tonic water, a juicy pear and elderflower with a dash of lemon. The drinks are best served chilled or over ice with bits and pieces of real fruit and a slice of lemon. It reminded us of a classic ‘Gin Fizz’ with a shot of elderflower.

Make no mistake, these Silver Swift drinks are no ordinary spritzer drinks. The drinks are low in calories (from 85 to the highest of 98), they are made with country garden flavours, vegan free from gluten and other nasties and are made with Britain’s award-winning spirits. You’ll also be glad to know that each of their drinks only has a low alcoholic percentage of just 5% abv. These four drinks not only look pretty they are very palatable and unusual, we think they’re great for drinking alone or pairing with food. The bottles are 250ml  with a price point of £2.55 each, to purchase see here, Cheers!