Cocktails in the City

The venue is magnificent — Mansfield Tanquair is just a beauty of a building that once was a church now a venue that hosts weddings and other events like cocktails in the city.
As you enter the event you get given a token, to which you can purchase more later — £6 per token = token per cocktail.
Ok £6 isn’t that expensive considering it’s a cocktail event. With that entry fee you get a small booklet telling you who’s there in regards of bars and what their cocktail is. In one way it helps you figure out which one you prefer to go to first.
It does get busy so ordering might take a minute or two. My favourite cocktail of the night was Voodoo Rooms’ «Darling Ruby».
They do some food, which is great if you need to absorb the alcohol as you may have a few cocktails to test them! I never tried the food but it looked OK.
They have talks on by bars as well, which is pretty interesting and entertaining too, to which you get a couple of tasters of certain spirits.
All in all a good night — defo will think coming along again next year!

I have a special place in my heart for Cocktails in the City, as the 2014 edition was the first time I bounced offline and met up with local Edinburgh Unilocalers. Now well into #TeamNinja shenanigans, I look forward to CitC every year so I can relive where it all began.
The event is a great concept in a truly breathtaking setting. They bring together pop ups of some of the best bars in the city for two nights (they expanded to the second night this year), plunk it in a beautiful room and add music… nothing wrong about that combination. Especially if you can’t go out on the regular, it’s an amazing way to try multiple spots in one swoop in the hopes of uncovering your very own cocktail gurus.
Very simply: near foolproof idea.
But though I love nothing more than bouncing through this place, there are a few things that could use a little polish. So here’s the rundown of CitC 2015:
Love:
— Clouds & Soil… definitely a great little find.
— Milk Money Cocktails’ masterclass
— the non-​alcoholic mocktail booth!
— Head & Tales anything and everything
— Eteaket throwing down tea/​spirit combos
— the addition of hot food bowls
— alcoholic ice cream
Miss:
— the photobooth shenanigans from last year
— Panda & Sons, Paradise Palms, Sligh House (last year, Bar Kohl)
Wish:
— MORE food! Only little bowls = 6+ cocktail danger zone
— Whisky! Whisky based cocktails were few and far between.
— More tables or less folks (it’s always a smokin’ busy event, which gets dangerous when you’re carrying a cocktails and trying to weave through a wall of people. More places to stop and put down your glass would be great, or doing an early bird/​late night shift in tickets (cheaper for the first and last hour maybe?)
— Live music… this is just a personal preference, but in that room, it would be great. Especially since the masterclass stage has been moved.
All in all, I looked forward to it this year and i’ll look forward to the next. They seem to finesse year on year, so bring it on 2016!

It was a fun evening, if a little heavy on the gin selection. A great venue, and while it was busy it didn’t get too crowded. Hands down best cocktail in my humble opinion was with the Appleton Rum, from Clouds and Soil.