Elizabeth's Christmas present to Luke this year came in the form of a cocktail-making lesson, so on Saturday we headed down to College Street Bar to learn some new tricks and sample a few tasty recipes!
Luke making a Margarita... under very close supervision.
The class was called Breaking the Ice and was run by Bartender One; it serves as an introduction to cocktail-making for bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts alike. We definitely fall more on the cocktail (drinking) enthusiast side of things, but after the lesson we were seriously considering taking one of the more in-depth courses offered by Bartender One.
Ready to sample some drinks.
After a quick, and messy, introduction to free pouring (using water so as to not waste precious booze) we were straight into making and sampling cocktails. With around 16 people taking the course, and limited space behind the bar, we took turns making a cocktail for the rest of the group to sample. It was a lot of fun, very laid back, and we weren't complaining about the emphasis on sampling the different drinks. The guys running the course were great, proving all the top tips and explaining the backstory of each of the drinks, which included a Cucumber Tom Collins, a Whiskey Sour, a Cosmopolitan with burnt orange peel, and a Margarita.
 Shaking up a Margarita. |  Prepping a Whiskey Sour. |
The whole lessons lasted around 2 hours. On our way back to our apartment (via an awesome little pizza place) we decided to pick up the necessary ingredients for our own Cucumber Tom Collins, and spent the evening enjoying our newfound knowledge. Overall, Luke was very pleased with his Christmas present.
Here are some more pictures from the day:
Here are some more pictures from the day:
In other, sadder news this week, we had to say farewell to our beloved little black dog back in the UK (Blackie a.k.a. Paddy a.k.a. Brutus). He lived a very long and happy life, and was loved by us all. We will miss the little guy.
