Swag hags

A man dressed as a giant cucumber sang “It’s not easy being green” to me last night.

And it wasn’t a dream.

Or a nightmare.

I will explain in a minute. But first, I have a confession: I’ve gone on a holiday. I might not have time to blog for a little while, so I will fill you in when I get a few spare moments.

This is my current view …

And I just had a Bellini and corn fritters for brekkie …

Now, back to cucumber man.

I got invited to three drinks functions last night, which was too many even for me. One was for a whiskey launch, the other two were for gin launches. I decided not to mix my spirits, picked the two gin ones and invited my sister along as my plus one.

First stop was The Clock Hotel for a Bombay Sapphire event that included choosing a customised Alana Maria bracelet and having it permanently soldered on, which is apparently what all the young ones are doing these days.

We both picked delicate ones with little shells with pearls in them. So sweet!

As we were leaving the lovely PR, a lovely Irish redhead who is such a sweetheart, rushed off to get us our goodie bags.

The bags were ENORMOUS white ones with the words “Bombay Sapphire” emblazoned across the side, with a bottle of gin, four mini bottles of tonic and two bowl glasses clinking inside them.

We hefted tem out onto the street and jumped in a cab to a Hendricks Gin launch, giggling about being “event whores” or “swag hags”. My sister suggested I call this blog post “event whores” but it felt a bit too naughty for a blog heading.

Hendrick’s has just launched GRAND CABARET, a new limited release gin inspired by a historic fruit-based libation that was in vogue in Paris in the early 20^th Century.  

Hendrick’s Master Distiller Lesley Gracie was inspired after reading about a stone fruit eau de vie that was served with a dash of gin and scented with rose, which gained popularity at fashionable Parisian parties in the early 1900s. This eau de vie was in turn inspired by a 17^th Century revelation: the distilling of stone fruit.

Gracie said: “I’m always looking for inspiration and this time I found it leafing through historical recipes for stone fruit spirits – eau de vies, peach schnapps, cherry liqueurs and the like – when those indulgent stone fruit flavours were really the ‘in thing’ for those that had the means to celebrate in spectacular style.

“I played around and found that when you put these different stone fruit flavours together, they give you a nice rich depth of flavour. I added sweet herbs to round the vibrant fruit out. It’s the first time I’ve experimented with stone fruits and I love how it adds a decadent depth of flavour, whilst maintaining a refreshing lightness.”

The Hendrick’s GRAND CABARET bottle has a purple hue and is adorned with an eclectic mix of intriguing icons, including a chandelier, a nod to the extravagant gatherings which inspired the liquid’s creation.

To celebrate the launch, Hendrick’s transformed The Emerald Room in Darlinghurst into a luxe burlesque cabaret venue, with a claw-footed Hendrick’s bathtub on a circular stage at its centre.

A waiter ushered us to our table as we clinked across the room with our enormous Bombay Sapphire goodie bags … awkward … and we settled down with a Bellini and a cheese plate to wait for the show to start.

It was incredible! Strip teases, acrobatics in the air, a man in a gold g-string writhing in the bathtub, theatrical cocktails and the aforementioned cucumber man.