Newsdesk: best in Britain

This edition of Newsdesk is sponsored by local pride coloured with a touch of envy.

• Lots of lovely things have been written about Bramble down on Queen Street, all of which are annoyingly true. So, congratulations to the team on winning Best Place to Drink in the 2009 Observer Food Monthly Awards.
• The other things Scots are good at? Dying from drink-related problems no matter where they go.
• The BBC hit up New York's cocktailians for demos of historic drinks (Not sure how well iPlayer embeds work outside of the UK - let me know if the video works overseas).
• Over at Proof, what your favourite drink says about you.
• On creation - not the divisive theological kind, more the fun, drinky kind - though there's a solid theoretical base to all the artistry.
• The New York Times happens across Paris' Experimental Cocktail Club. Coincidence, or are they following the Cocktail Guru?

Fragments: on mixology

I'm in the process of putting together a training session on cocktails and mixology. It should - hopefully - fit into our standard 2 hour session format, and it follows six weeks of spirits and liqueur product knowledge. Here's a couple of excerpts from the work in progress.

There's a difference between making cocktails and creating cocktails. The toolkit is the same - techniques, ingredients, and ingredients - but the name of the game is pattern recognition.

...

Disappointingly, it's so improbable that anyone can do anything genuinely groundbreaking outside of current toolset as to be indistinguishable from impossible. So, what then? Well, let's start playing with our tools.