Drinking cocktails at 8am

It’s quite the slice of life when you find yourself drinking espresso martinis at a cocktail party at 8am … and still sipping them at 6pm that night …

Ah, the joys of being a booze journo!

Before you start worrying about the state of my liver, the morning cocktails were non alcoholic.

I headed to The Boathouse Rose Bay yesterday for the launch of Lyre’s Classico, the brand’s first full-size bottle of non-alcoholic Sparkling Wine.

When I checked the invitation at 7am, I realised it said that I could bring a guest. Dammit. Bit late to ask someone to join me, but I texted my friend Claudia on the off chance. She was asleep. Ooops.

Then I battled the traffic to Rose Bay and drove around forever before finally finding a park up a nosebleed hill. It brought back so many memories to be in Rose Bay, as I lived there twice in my youth, once with my friend Jodie and once with my sister. I will never forget getting horribly drunk in my apartment close to The Boathouse after my first boyfriend left me. Messy.

There was no danger of getting messy at brekkie yesterday because the cocktails were alcohol free. I am still on the fence about non-alcoholic spirits. I’m not sure I enjoy the taste of gin or tequila enough to sip it without the ABV. But the category is going absolutely OFF. The guy behind Lyre’s is making millions out of it.

I walked into the restaurant at 8.15am and steeled myself to wander around pretending to be engrossed in taking photos, when I spotted a familiar face.

It was Eliza, who I used to work with at Cosmo magazine and is now the glamorous editor of Inside Out. She still looks exactly the same, while I had to remove quite a few wrinkles in Photoshop before sharing the photo of us together.

She came to my wedding and we have shared many happy moments together over the years, but we fell out of touch during my marriage breakdown. Apparently we had a drink at some point that I don’t remember because I think I’ve blanked out a lot of the personal and professional horror from that period of my life.

We’ve vowed to have dinner soon and I’ve promised to let her get a word in. When I told her I was dating a scientist who doesn’t talk much she said that sounded like my perfect match …

We caught up for an hour or so while swarms of influencers sashayed around drinking non-alcoholic prosecco, margaritas and espresso martinis at sparrow’s fart. It was a little freaky.

The Boathouse Rose Bay is absolutely gorgeous and the weather was unexpectedly fabulous so I ended up being very glad to have attended the event, despite almost having a heart attack while clambering back up the hill to my car.

Then I turned around at 3pm and backed up for a cocktail party featuring actual alcohol – a Grey Goose spritz event at Centennial Park. I decided I’d better catch the bus to that one.