11 October

The inaugural London Cocktail Week, the world's first such cocktail festival, started on this day in 2010.

In 2009, Simon Difford (of this manor) came up with the idea of starting a London cocktail festival and trademarked the name London Cocktail Week. Hannah Sharman-Cox, who was then running a fledgling drinks-focused PR business for Simon, was challenged by him to organise the festival, with the first London Cocktail Week running from Monday 11th to Sunday 17th October 2010.

Simon's idea was for drinks brands to support bars with free stock, so during this one week a year, each cocktail bar could offer a discounted cocktail to anyone wearing a London Cocktail Week wristband. A purpose-built website publicised the supporting brands and participating bars. When folk registered for a wristband, they received a booklet with maps to help them tour participating bars, helped by free travel on branded London Routemaster buses. This concept of companies supporting bars for one week a year to showcase their products in discounted cocktails has become the model for cocktail weeks around the world.

In February 2014, Simon sold London Cocktail Week to his friends Sukhinder and Raj Singh. They, along with Hannah and Siobhan Payne, continued to run and build London Cocktail Week, which Pernod Ricard acquired in 2021.

Then, in 2025, Hannah and Siobhan took control of London Cocktail Week from Pernod Ricard and announced they were postponing the 2026 festival to restart in March 2027, with some tweaks to its format.

With thanks to Hannah's key role in making Simon's idea a reality, we're drinking an Espresso Martini.

The day bartending legend Trader Vic died

Gentleman bartender and gentleman scoundrel, one-legged rumour monger and foul-mouthed Tiki deity, Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron died on this day in 1984 - and a legend died with him. Vic was 81, and missed the fiftieth anniversary of his business empire by a matter of weeks: he had started Hinky Dink's on 17th November, 1934.

Vic once claimed that he'd done anything, up to and including sticking an ice pick in his wooden leg, to get customers, and his feud with Donn Beach is bartending legend. Yet he was also a sculptor, a painter, a jewellery designer, a fossils geek, a cook, and an apostle of rum in all its marvellous variations.

Trader Vic! We salute you. And we are toasting you with a Mai Tai - your own, of course. For heaven forfend you ever stole it.