4 February

It's Stuffed Mushroom Day, an excuse to celebrate one of the world's most versatile bar snacks. Earthy mushrooms act like little umami sponges, soaking up everything from garlic butter and herbs to blue cheese, crab, or spicy sausage. Rich, savoury and deeply satisfying, they're a versatile base for bar bites.

Naturally, they shine brightest with cocktails that cut through the richness or echo those savoury notes. Our Damn It Jimmy has crisp acidity and sake to lift the umami depth. Or try a Sherry Cobbler to lean into savoury notes without overwhelming the food.

It's World Cancer Day

Cancer kills around 9.7 million people worldwide, and without major changes in prevention or treatment, global cancer deaths are forecast to rise to ~18.6 million annually by 2050 due to population growth and ageing. Almost everyone knows someone who has grappled with this killer disease, successfully or otherwise.

Medical advances offer some hope - strangely, a "caterpillar fungus", a truly bizarre organism that consumes and mummifies a caterpillar, then sprouts anew from its remains, is one.

In honour of all those who have lived with cancer, and the caterpillar that might be the clue to a future cure, we are drinking a Butterfly Cocktail. World Cancer Day is also a day to support charities that are working to support those unfortunate enough to have cancer and to develop cures for this frightening disease. Here at Difford's Guide we support Bowel Cancer UK.

It's also Facebook's birthday

This day in 2004, a Harvard student named Mark Zuckerberg started a little site called thefacebook.com, as a way for classmates to keep in touch. Within a month more than half of Harvard's undergraduates were on thefacebook.com; by 2005, Facebook.com had over a million users.

In 2012, the number of active Facebook users surpassed 1 billion. Now, there are around 2.9 billion monthly active users, and Mark Zuckerberg is worth squillions.

Is Facebook keeping us connected? Or is it distracting us from the real world, the real people, and the real relationships around us, with its constant clamour for 'likes' and 'shares' and 'comments'? We're not entirely sure whether the ability to fight with strangers on the internet 24/7 is entirely a good thing. But we do love an Angel Face cocktail, a drink we found in Harry Craddock's 1930 The Savoy Cocktail Book, so we're toasting Facebook's birthday with just that. Cheers!

Bacardi's birthday

The founder of Bacardi was a Catalan wine merchant called Facundo Bacardi Massó, who left Spain for Cuba in 1830.

Facundo and his brother, Jose, eventually set up shop in a Santiago de Cuba distillery in 1862, where along with their brother-in-law, Schueg, they established and then quickly expanded their brand. The trio branded Cuba as "the home of rum," and Bacardi as "the king of rums"...and then, during US prohibition, they invited Americans to "come to Cuba and bathe in Bacardi rum." The rest, as they say, is history!

Join us in celebrating this giant of a brand with a Bacardi Cocktail or even a Bacardi Special - a cocktail adapted from Harry Craddock's 1930 The Savoy Cocktail Book.