I was invited along to try out a new pop-up bar in Birmingham’s Bullring: Once Upon A Time In Birmingham. You’ll find Once Upon A Time In Birmingham been designed as a festive world first by Bompas & Parr. The venue is lit up with 88,000 fairy lights and it’s a festive tea parlour, party bar and event space. It’s in the space in the Middle Mall of the Bullring that was previously occupied by Jamie’s Italian so it’s well located and the perfect spot to meet up with friends for a Christmas drink.
We tried a number of the cocktails from the selection on offer and a few of the desserts from the menu. There’s very much a Christmas theme going on especially with the drinks selection. You can order from a wide range of beers, wines and spirits or you can opt for one of the cocktails. Once Upon A Time In Birmingham seems made for cocktails, so we decided to sample those. I started with the Plum, Apple & Cinnamon Colour Changing Ice Tea (the tall green drink pictured above). It’s a refreshing drink with that hint of Christmas going on with the cinnamon flavouring. Or go for that Christmas favourite eggnog in the shape of the Flambéed Golden Eggnog with a gold dust meringue topping.
There are lots of fun features to enjoy from vibrating seats and over the top Christmas decorations within to bar area, to light up toilet bowls in the ladies. I recommend you try looking at the lights through the special glasses available – perhaps best to try it before you have your drinks as it’s a touch peculiar.
Food wise there’s a selection of desserts available and you can even opt to try a festive Christmas afternoon tea. They are the perfect treat if you like something sweet. My personal favourite was this amazing clear jelly which looked really special under the lights and had a delicate festive flavour.
Sadler’s Brewing Co. has announced the launch of Brewer’s Social Harborne, the third venue in its expanding roster which includes Sadler’s Brewhouse & Bar in Lye and Sadler’s Taproom Quinton. My brother’s father-in-law is a big Sadler’s fan and has visited both Sadler’s in Lye (for a brewery tour) as well as the Quinton Taproom, which is one of his locals.
Having seen and heard so much passion from their customers, I was interested to hear about the distilling of the spirits. It was really interesting to hear from Brewdog’s Steven Kersley (Head Of Distillation) because his knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm shone through. We started tasting the pure spirits as he talked about each one. Before we tried each one, we were encouraged to swill it around in the glass and take a good smell, a bit like you do at wine tastings. We also tried the tasting process with a cube of ice in the drink – it was amazing how it was so much more difficult to smell the spirit once we’d done this.