Well the gaps seem to be getting longer and longer but that just means there is more time for the anticipation to grow, for my fantastic blog and for the top notch entertainment on at Annabel’s this bank holiday weekend.

With everyone being in a Royally good mood due to Kate and Wills getting us an extra day off, well present company excepted, we have really pushed the boat out with a veritable smorgasbord of musical and dancing delights over the four day break.

Last night the Doctors and Nurses had their Pay Day Party, complete with a burlesque showcase organised by Miss Kitty Kane, and featuring her brightest stars, plus our resident DJ Jefferson Vandike spinning in the disco and Company B, banging out the tunes in the Cabaret Room.

If you have never seen Company B, look out for their next appearance!  They are one of the tightest large groups you will hear in Plymouth. Replete with the American GI look circa 1940, this band is highly stylised, but definitely not style of substance. They are quickly becoming one of our most popular and asked after bands, so make sure you see them next Bank Holiday Sunday at the end of May.

Hard on the heels of Company B, is Rockin’ The Joint, tonight taking the musical vibe up a decade or so, these guys get the dance floor in a spin with their Rock n Roll sounds. Come join our regular jump jivers and get rocking the joint!

We continue our musical journey through the years by grooving on into the 60s and 70s with the one and only Boogie Knights. Veterans of the Annabel’s stage, I cant think of a better band to fill the dance floor and get everyone shimmy and shaking into Sunday morning.

From Annabel’s regulars to Annabel’s newbies, the phenomenally named Fujalada take the stage on Sunday picking up where Freshly Squeezed and the Land of Giants left us over the last few weekends. Plenty of funk jams with a jazzy latin twist mean that these guys are one debutant you don t want to miss, so take it easy on Sunday afternoon to ensure your memory is at full capacity!

To celebrate the Bank holiday and especially, the Royal Wedding, I have decided to come up with something delicate and quintessentially English for the weekend; A cocktail that screams class and elegance, with subtle flavours that will have you thinking of a gentle English summer evening.

What could be more English than Gin, who cares that it originates in Holland, we took it, we made it better and we love it. So much so in fact that Gin is believed to have been the biggest killer of the middle class in Victorian England; Now that’s commitment! Of course neither I nor Annabel’s condone drinking THAT much Gin, (or any alcohol for that matter), but we do condone quality over quantity, and as such this cocktail is a perfect example of a good thing coming in a small package.

I had many names in mind, “Will’s Thrills”, “Royally Screwed” and my personal favourite, “Stuck in the Middleton With You”, but I felt that none of these appropriately represented the drink nor the idea behind it. So I decided on “Wedding Belle”, in homage to our future queen.

The drink consists of a Plymouth Gin base, added to fresh lemon juice and some sugar, Calvados and a few dashes of peach bitters. The drink has a floral appeal, where the Gin’s botanicals marry up with the delicate fruit notes. It is a truly refreshing drink with a long lasting and simple flavour. Whether you think its fit for a king is up to you, but give it a try in the name of Queen and Country at least!

So there we have it, we are going through the ages at Annabel’s this week from 40s swing to a very modern marriage, so whatever your era come down and banish bank holiday banality for good!

Having given you a good few weeks and a good few bands to get over the birthday celebrations, I am back with a new blog, anew cocktail and two fantastic bands set to light up the Annabel’s stage and bring in April with a bang!On the Friday night we have a band that prove that to do it properly you have to get your hands dirty, it’s the fantastic Top Shelf Jazz. This band have been playing their naughty forties style jazz and swing at Annabel’s since we opened and maintain a firm following amongst our clientele. If you haven’t heard of them, get down and jump on the band wagon!

We change pace on the Saturday night with the dead dark sounds of the Red Hot Trio, the only band who can really put the burr in our burlesque theme! These guys are one of the most energetic and fun Rockabilly bands on the scene, and believe me its infectious, so if you see a smartly dressed dark haired man with and ear piece attempting a solo swing dance, don’t worry too much it will just be me clearing the dance floor!

With our customary quality of musical entertainment comes our customary quality of cocktails, and I have another specially made house cocktail for the weekend. Taking its name from our Friday night group and its soul from the ‘Trio, this is a devilish cocktail that has delightful consequences. I call this one “Top Shelf Juice”, I know its not the best name I have ever used, but I had to give a nod to the fantastic Top Shelf Jazz! Note: Red Hot Trio, don’t feel left out your cocktail will come! “Top Shelf Juice” is a bourbon based cocktail, (see my Mint Julep blog for Bourbon information), which provides the fire up against the red and black fruits that give the drink its depth of flavour.

This cocktail combines crème de Mure and crème de Cassis, (that’s blackberry and blackcurrant liqueur to you and I), with a fresh Raspberry, lime and sugar base, add a dash of dry Cranberry juice to balance out the sweet and sour element and you have a fruits of the forest style cocktail

with a big alcohol flavour. It’s ‘Top Shelf Juice’! Served over crushed ice in an old fashioned or straight up, each method gives a different

perspective on the drink. Over ice takes the edge off by diluting the cocktail slightly, making it more palatable for those who prefer not to taste too much

alcohol, however I feel that the best serve is straight up where the powerful, dry flavours can be best tasted.

So with cocktail in hand I anticipate you swinging and jiving the weekend away with us here at Annabel’s. The shot of the week is coming back for summer this weekend, so don’t forget to head outside to see Karina in our bottle bar for a shot and a smile!

See you here!

Olli

Well its rolled back around again, but to be honest, it’s the one birthday that we can all look forward to; No jokes about age, no pairs of socks and certainly no tears before bedtime – it can only be Annabel’s Cabaret’s birthday weekend! We have quite a weekend in store as well.

Warming us up we have our usual Thursday Showdown with some of Plymouth’s hottest up and coming musical acts. The night is really starting to develop an identity of its own and each week there is an eclectic mix of music with the single common denominator of raw talent.

On Friday we have the first of two performances by the wonderful Congo Faith Healers. I’ve written a blog on these guys before, so just scroll down to read a bit about their pedigree, if you cant be bothered with that then just trust me. These guys are top class. To join in the fun we have Ameera, the queen of British belly dancing, a sultry combination of talents I’m sure you will agree.

Then Saturday, 12th March, is our official celebration with the club being transformed into a scene from Tarzan, with our Jungle theme taking hold. We’re greatly encouraging fancy dress, so we

want to see some tempting tigers, jiving jaguars and of course, plenty of cheeky monkeys!

Alongside the boys from the Congo, we have our original burlesque beauty Coco De Ville! Coco has moved onto big things in the burlesque movement and is renowned as one of the best in the country. This is one occasion when the phrase “Not To Be Missed” truly applies.

With all of that in mind, my cocktail of the weekend has to be something special. Something tropical, tempting and a little bit dangerous. So may I introduce to you, the ‘Coco Loco’!

You can imagine the Coco Loco as the crazy twin of the Pina Colada. The differences between them are both subtle and important. The Coco Loco is basically a mint and coconut daiquiri, made using fresh mint, coconut rum, golden rum, lime, sugar and pineapple juice. The key differences between this drink and the Pina Colada are that the Coco Loco is served straight up not as a long drink and that it has mint in. The herb adds a real cool edge to the drink which is so obviously absent in the instantly quaffable and creamy Pina Colada.
For a colourful twist I am going to drop a couple of dashes of bright red grenadine, which will be sunk to the bottom of the glass, creating a fantastic colour clash between the red syrup and the white/yellow body of the cocktail. The overall flavour combination is surprisingly complex with the lime and mint providing a real edge to the tropical warmth of the rum and pineapple.

Will you like it? Well there is only one person who can answer that but after the success of That Cool Gin Thing during the recent rock’n’roll weekend, I’m confident that at least a few will be brave enough to sample another Olli Mitchell original!

So remember, whereas our birthday may only come once a year, we rock and roll every weekend!!

Well I have been absent from the blogosphere for a few weeks since the fantastic AM Preacher came to town, and as such I managed to miss writing about the latin sounds of Katie Prado & The Mamboleros. The London based band delivered two fantastic and unique sets last weekend winning plenty of fans in the process, if you were not among the dancing throng, then you missed out big time.

We’re serving up a great big helping of rockabilly and jazz this weekend courtesy of the most energetic bands on the scene, The Red Hot Trio

and some of the most consistent performers of swing in the South West, The Hot House Playboys! We always bring the best acts in the region to Annabel’s and these two bands truly showcase why we manage to have so many varied high quality acts on our stage every week.

As we are making it so “Hot” this weekend, I thought I’d bring back a great drink to help cool down that I used to make plenty of a few years ago. Originally derived from a Gin Garden, my version was named the Lord Flashheart, after the eponymous Blackadder character, despite never sharing any of the same qualities possessed by the man himself! Perhaps a better name is That Cool Gin Thing!, much more 50s and appropriate for our entertainment this weekend.

The drink has a base of muddled cucumber, lime and sugar which forms the beginning of the cool flavours, to which we add a shot of Zubrowska bison grass flavoured vodka from Poland, half a shot each of Hendrick’s Gin and St. Germain elderflower liqueur and then mix it all up in a glass of crushed ice, top up with a dash of apple juice and garnish with a mint leaf. The drink has surprising depth with the sugar, apple juice and Zubrowka providing a warm flavour which opposes the cool cucumber and elderflower spirits.

Hendrick’s Gin is a delicious and unique Scottish Gin which is heavily flavoured by cucumber and rose petal alongside its other botanicals and is made in small-batch production, that is to say, less than 1000 litres at a time, giving the master distiller more opportunity to finely craft his work. The drink is marketed in a kooky way that plays on its uniqueness and harks back to a time of Victorian stylings, just check out their website to see what I am talking about, www.hendricksgin.com.

St. Germain is pushed in a similar way, with 1930s instead of turn of the century forming the base of its promotion and décor. Another artisanal style spirit, this French liqueur from the foothills of the Alps is still handmade, with even the Elderflowers being handpicked by local paysans, as they say themselves, its hard to believe that local potato pickers will be doing the same for you Polish or Russian vodka……

Another interesting point is that the spirit has roughly half the sugar content of most liqueurs and therefore comes across as a much cleaner flavour in our cocktails.

As you can see, from the base to the spirits, this drink is a highly sophisticated fellow, and whilst that might seem at odds with our red hot entertainment, just wait until you’ve danced a few numbers and you’ll be desperate to try one!

See you at the weekend! Olli Mitchell

There are many types of bands, and many types of burlesque, however when it comes to New York based AM Preacher, we must delve into something completely different, something completely original and something completely brilliant. The US based group truly put the rock n roll stylings into everything they do, from their high energy live shows to the sexy dancing girls strutting their stuff around them whilst they bang out rockabilly heaven on their instruments.

Having thought about the type of entertainment that we are lucky enough to have this weekend I feel that there can be only one spirit that can accompany it. And that is, the most rock and roll of all drinks; Bourbon.

Bourbon is to the United States is what Champagne is to France, a proper regional specialty that is defined by where it is made as much as what it is made of. A “distinctive product of the United States”, Bourbon is the prized possession of Kentucky, and more specifically Bourbon county in Kentucky. Contrary to popular belief, Bourbon is not legally required to be made in Kentucky, but around 95% of it is, and all of the famous Bourbon distilleries are located in the original and historic centre.

There are a whole host of cocktails that can be made with Bourbon, many generic whiskey cocktails that can be made with Scotch ,Irish or any other type of whiskey. Perhaps the most recognisable bourbon cocktail is the Mint Julep, the staple drink of the Kentucky Derby, the famous American horse race, this drink is made with mint, sugar and lime and resembles a Bourbon Mojito. Proper Mint Juleps are served in a metal julep cup and made the night before and part-frozen at a temperature to keep the drink fresh and a bit slushy. Many real julep aficionados have their own personal cup! We might not be able to give you the personalised glassware but we can certainly whip up a couple of Mint Juleps for you. Just ask one of our bartenders.

Although the Mint Julep is representative of America and the sexy south, only one cocktail screams New York City, and its even named after one of the five boroughs; The Manhattan. Like its namesake, it’s smooth and cool which belies its underlying hard edge. The drink is a simple combination of American whiskey, such as a good Bourbon, with dry and sweet vermouth and some bitters to taste. A cherry serves as the garnish. The drink may seem simple but to make a really good version it takes time and the proper preparation method, coating the ice in the vermouths and mixing slowly with the whisky to allow the flavours to develop and mellow. The great thing about the Manhattan is that it can be twisted and modified to cater to different palates, such as much favourite which is a drop of Amaretto instead of the dry vermouth to give a sweet nutty bite to the drink which nullifies the sharp taste. Another great twist is adding a half a shot of ruby port and a big twist of lemon to give the drink a really deep flavour.

Whichever drink you choose, come and enjoy one whilst watching a truly exciting band who may never return to the deepest, darkest Westcountry again!

The decorations put away, the resolutions already faltering and back at work. Oh it doesn’t seem like this time of year is very kind to anyone does it? Never fear though because at Annabel’s we have the secret formula for beating the post holiday blues, two words. Sexy Fun!

We start our New Year like we finished the last one with fabulous bands, the likes of which will turn up the heat inside so much thatyou’ll forget that it ever snowed at all!

Not to mention our fantastic cocktails freshly prepared by our fabulous staff, and if that wasn’t enough we have one of the most successful local DJs of all time, the irrepressible Jeff Vandike.

First up is the very talented Mr. Benny Carr and the Hot Rats, these guys have been regulars since the start and have a excellent reputation as some of the most complete musicians in South Devon. The Hot Rats will be jamming out all the swing, jive and blues favourites that are guaranteed to make the dancefloor rock.

On our first Saturday night of the year we have an extra special treat for all of our music fans as we present one of our favourite bands, Freshly Squeezed. If you don’t know this band, then you also don’t know what you are missing. A unique blend of reggae, ska and funk all mixed in with soulful vocals, emceeing and a brilliant brass section.

To prove how much we admire this young band, we have given them the ultimate Annabel’s honour and put a cocktail on the list named after them – well almost. FRESHLY PLEEZED is a sweet and spicy combination of ginger, lemongrass, citrus and sugar muddled and mixed up with lychee liqueur and Wyborowa vodka for some extra dimensions. The drink is at once both subtle and complex, combining an immediate hit of spice and sweetness with longer tones of exotic fruit and the dryness of the Vodka and lemongrass. This one is a close relative of the Dirty Robber, using similar ingredients, but the overall taste is much different with much more heat coming through the spices and giving a lasting taste much different to its sweeter cousin.

What a perfect way to announce 2011, great bands, great drinks and great times. Let’s make it a year to remember at Annabel’s starting from day one.

Happy New Year and make sure at least one of those resolutions is to drink more cocktails!

So, just one more weekend until Christmas and it’s a extra special one at Annabel’s this year with it being the final Friday and Saturday nights open before our “Last Night of Decadence”; New Year’s Eve. With three nights of live entertainment and DJs bringing the quality that has come to be established with Annabel’s Cabaret. We have two of our most revered and respected bands on the stage with the epitome of fun frolics, Boogie Nights, and the smooth stylish notes of the Hot House Playboys. Both guaranteed to banish the winter blues.So whether it’s a final night out before a relative filled holiday period or the final resting place of your office party, we have everything covered from an entertainment stand-point.

Of course, Annabel’s just wouldn’t be Annabel’s without some brilliant drinks to go with our top notch live bands and DJs. Our fine bar staff will bring you all the classic and house cocktails that we deliver week-in week-out along with our their own favourites, so how about trying something different before we slip out of the ‘noughties’ and into the teens? (no pun intended….!)Each week I try to tie in a special and unique cocktail with our entertainment, whether they be singers, dancers or bands. However, as Christmas is on the horizon I feel I have to bow to the pressure and bring you a cocktail full of festive flavour! I won’t lie, it was a tough choice which direction to pursue; Brandy Snaps? Sherry? Mince Pie? Turkey?! Eventually after dismissing the possibility of a gravy based drink, I settled on Christmas Pudding, a flavour representative of both the Christmas holidays and the pagan festivals that existed before it.

The Christmas-tini has all the elements and flavours that we associate with this time of year. We take a base of Jacquin’s “Rock n Rye “, a spiced American whisky and add fresh zesty lemon juice, the spice of Dubbonnet, (a heavy aperitif full of festive smells), fruity sloe gin, a dash of orange bitters and some Campari for more citrus flavour and finally some nutmeg! What might seem like an unusual amount of ingredients simply reflects the busy and warm qualities everybody loves about the traditional desert in question. Just like the Christmas Pudding, we don’t enjoy this drink for its simplicity of its subtlety; We enjoy it for the flavour, the feeling and the fun.

So essentially Christmas is just like our special Christmas-tini and the age old Christmas Pud, something to enjoy for all the right reasons as long as you don’t take it too seriously and accept it for what it is. So come down and shake off the holiday stress by grabbing a drink, having a dance and listening to some really good music provided by some of the surest hands in the business.

Merry Christmas everyone…….!!!

The weekends are coming thick and fast at Annabel’s, no sooner have the Dirty Robbers stolen our hearts and skipped town then two more top-notch bands land ready to rock the dance floor like only they can.

On Friday we have the Congo Faith Healers, who have performed on Jools Holland and have graced the same bill as Supergrass, Finlay Quaye and KT Tunstall! True quality.

Our other headline act is one of Plymouth’s most popular bands and a guaranteed sell out wherever they play. Mad Dog Mcrea have been around for years, impressing all who see and hear them with their unique brand of Irish folk rock. Anyone who has seen them at Annabel’s before knows that they are a band who can certainly turn a nightclub into something more like a stadium rock gig!

Such is the calibre of our entertainment this weekend I thought it only fitting that both should have their own cocktail on offer to their adoring fans.

Mad Dog already have their own concoction which represents all the things that make Mad Dog McRea such an exciting act…

…the smokiness of scotch, the beating Irish heart of Jameson’s and the heat and spice of fresh ginger and chilli. This is a serious cocktail created a couple of years ago by myself and fellow Annabel’s mixologist Harri Pettit-Wade.

To create the drink we expanded on the usual bourbon sour that we regularly drank and added a ginger kick and then the red chillies to really make the flavours pop. The intense spice plays off against the sweet and sour base of the drink and also the woody notes of the whisky. The drink was so insanely good that the name Mad Dog had to be used. Eventually the drink was modified to reflect the Celtic soul of Mad Dog McRea and bourbon was substituted for Irish whiskey with a dash of Laphroiag Scotch.

If all that sounds a bit too intense for your tastes, opt for the Friday night specialty the “Congo Bongo”, a tribute to our London visitors. Again I have tried to reflect the attributes of our guest band in the drinks ingredients, resulting in a sweet, tangy and enjoyable cocktail that will leave you wanting more. Jamaican rum provides us with a sweet, dark base, lime, pineapple juice and lychee liqueur add the exotic fruit flavours and the sugar and Cointreau add something sweet and sour right at the last.

If all that was not enough we’ll have our regular homemade shot ready to pour from the outside bar, so don’t worry about the cold because that will surely warm you up.  All in all it’s a pretty tasty looking line up at Annabel’s this weekend. I would advise you to get there early in order to take advantage of it because you certainly do not want to be left outside in the cold when our entertainment is so hot!

See you at the bar……

As I sit here, one moustache lighter, I would say something flippant like “another weekend down and another one comes around”, but to be frank, last weekend wasn’t just another weekend, it was crazy! I don’t recall ever seeing so many people escaping the cold by partying themselves into oblivion en masse quite like that before! But still we must move on and hopefully all you guys will help make it another freezing weekend to remember here at Annabel’s.

For our part we’ll be doing all we can, starting with Miss Kitty Kane’s Burlesque beauties on Thursday at her “Dolly Delights Showcase” and then supplying the fantastic London based band “The Dirty Robbers”, who will bring their own brand of sexy blues and rock n roll to our stage for not one, but two nights.  Neither are to be missed, and the freezing weather is not an excuse to stay in, unless you are already here at Annabel’s!

The previous “Dolly Delights Showcases” have proved to be exceptionally popular, selling out before the event starts, so make sure you get in quickly to purchase your seats. The theme is ‘Frosty Frolics’, so be assured that a sexy Santa or two and a few naughty elves will be dancing about for your pleasure….

The Robbers are one of our favourite out of town acts, and they bring with them a great blend of fun and musical excellence that is hard to match. Such prestigious performers they are that they have their own Burlesque routine, (another accomplishment of the wonderful Miss Kitty Kane), as well as their own cocktail on our menu, the incomparable “Dirty Robber”, hopefully this shows you just how highly thought of they are down here at Annabel’s and if you still don’t believe it this weekends they’ll show you why themselves.

The “Dirty Robber” is one of our most popular cocktails, looking every inch the part of what a cocktail is meant to be; Sexy, colourful and served up straight in an iced Martini glass. The shot of Champagne on the side does nothing to detract from the delight of the customers either! If you are one of the rare customers who have not tried it yet, let me paint a picture. A whole passion fruit is mixed with Vanilla sugar syrup, lemon juice, Stolichnaya Vanilla vodka and Lychee liqueur, mixed up hard in a shaker before being strained into your glass and served with the aforementioned shot of Champagne. It truly is style and sexiness in a glass.

If that doesn’t whet your appetite for another weekend then I don’t know what will!  We really do have it all at Annabel’s this week, from burlesque to belly dancing and from music to mischief , so come on down and warm your cockles one way or another starting from Thursday at 8.30pm!

Finally the end of November is upon us and that can only mean two things. Firstly, Christmas is looming ahead and your lives will now be filled with poorly made Christmas decorations, annoying television adverts and office parties that go a little bit too ‘far’. The second and much more important is that it’s the climax of the “Movember” celebrations and I can finally shave off my ridiculous ‘tache. For those who don’t know “Movember” is raising money for prostate cancer in a bid to get people to take men’s health more seriously. Many of us here at Annabel’s have been doing the whole month whilst many more will opt for the softer option of a ‘one-night standle bar’! So please come down sporting a real or fake piece of upper lip topiary and support our charitable work.

In honour of our “Movember” celebrations we will be serving a great cocktail, that although sounds unusual, is a real delight and comes with the bonus of giving you a temporary ‘tache as well! The Guinness Daiquiri was taught to me by Annabel’s former bartending superstar Olly Dyson and I’ll be using a slightly sweeter variation of his recipe that reflects the upcoming festive mood and the flavours of winter, with a zesty orange kick that balances out the rich tastes of the Guinness and chocolate. The flavours might at first seem contradictory but the all do work in unison, and on reflection its not that surprising as you will see the individual flavours paired with other with regularity, even Guinness with chocolate cake is an old Irish favourite!

The cocktail is a combination of Mount Gay rum, lime and sugar, (the classic Daiquiri recipe), with a dash of orange bitters, Grand Marnier and Mozart chocolate liquer added to it, this is then all shaken up and served straight up into a classy Martini glass, on top of the drink a shot of Guinness is carefully poured in order for it to float on top which creates a fantastic colour chart ranging from green to black to white. It looks great and tastes even better. And the best thing about the Guinness Daiquiri is that the thick white foam of the Guinness float will furnish your upper lip with a perfect one night mo’!

Well, after Lou Jordan had his own cocktail last week, I began thinking of all the other wonderful performers we have had here who have managed to earn their way on to our “Wall of Fame”, or what we like to call our menu……

 The one that really sticks in my head is the fantastically named, “Kitty Kitty Bang Bang”, named after our favourite burlesque dancer, Miss Kitty Kane, who you can catch dancing here at Annabel’s on Friday 14th and Sat 27th November.

 The Kitty Kitty Bang Bang is as striking as its namesake, its dark red colour and strawberry garnish hint at the sweet heavy flavours that lie within the Martini glass in which it is served. The secret ingredient in the drink is a bar spoon of balsamic vinegar, which catalyses the sugars in the fruit and alcohol and offsets them perfectly against the bitter citrus provided by the fresh lemon juice.

The base spirit is Wyborowa vodka from Poland, (the home of all the best vodkas!), which is a robust but smooth spirit that is malleable enough to merge with the fruit, vinegar and citrus without compromising the taste as a spirit with a more noticeable flavour would. If the drink was made with a gin which had large amount of botanicals, such as herb and fruit flavourings, then the drink would not work as the spirit would be in effect fighting against the flavour of the strawberries and vinegar.

 Wyborowa is one of our most popular vodkas, and can be used to make innumerable cocktails due to its easy drinking nature and the characteristics which I explained previously, try to with apple juice, mint and a hint of lime, a twist on the national drink of Poland. Wyborowa is a good alternative to Smirnoff, being smoother than its Russian counterpart, and therefore a better option for those like their mixed drinks to go down a little smoother.

 Wyborowa is a little known Vodka for many of our customers which is surprising as the brand was the first Vodka to have an international trademark and in the 1960s constituted 60% of the UKs imported Vodka. However, the brand was almost bankrupted and had to rely on booze giant Pernod-Ricard to save its distillery in Poznan. Having claimed over 29 medals in international competitions to date, its no wonder that the brand is increasing in popularity, truly living up to its translation; Wyborowa means “Selected”, and if you try it out in one of our Kitty Kitty Bang Bangs or on its own over ice, I am sure the Vodka lovers among you will understand why…….

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by olli mitchell

I trust you have all recovered from last weeks epic Halloween celebrations, I know it took me a couple of days to recuperate following the Spyders performance, not to mention the cocktails!

Don’t think you can breathe too easy just yet though as we have another “explosive” night lined up for Fireworks Night and beyond, and whilst we might not have fireworks inside we certainly have them in spirit with our entertainment!

Not a man to be outshone, even by the best fireworks the Hoe has to offer, we have LOU JORDAN  as Elvis in the building for two nights this weekend!  Lou performed last week alongside Shirley Bassey in the Royal Albert Hall to an audience of six thousand! So be sure to grab yourself a ringside seat for top quality entertainment!

Looking into the drinking habits of Elvis I hoped to come up with a favourite cocktail or spirit to work with this week, however, unsurprisingly in many ways, Elvis’s drinking was a murky area with some claiming that he never drank and others that he was a secret binge drinker – talk about extremes of information!

However, I do know for a fact that the legendary Lou Jordan, (our Elvis for the weekend), is a big fan of brandy, so I’ve decided to use this classic spirit as the topic for this weeks Barman’s Blog.

The story and description of brandy is as murky as Elvis’s drinking past, with many different spirits generally being called Brandy, in fact almost any spirit being distilled from a fruit base seems to attract the name Brandy, however I feel that if we are talking serious about the stuff we need to only accept the good stuff; grape based French brandy. Although there are other types, notably Armenian brandy, which was Winston Churchill’s favourite, most of us will be familiar with French brands from the Southwest of the country, such as Remy Martin, Martell and Hennessy.

Brandy cocktails abound, due to the continuous popularity of the spirit, the most famous being the Brandy Alexander, the Sidecar and Annabel’s favourite, The Champagne Cocktail. I have decided to pander to the weather and create a rather warming cocktail that should help stave off the cold and produce fireworks in your mouth!

Elvis has a plethora of songs for me to pun on, but I feel that “Delicious Minds” is the most apt! The cocktail is a combination of Martell brandy, pear liqueur and Calvados, an apple spirit, ‘All Shook Up’ with sugar, lemon juice and a dash of cinnamon. This is a proper winter warmer cocktail in which the cinnamon combines with the orchard fruit to bring out the dark flavours of the brandy. Delicious Minds can be served straight up or over ice if you’d prefer.

So ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ and head on down to Annabel’s this week where Elvis is in the building!

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october 23rd 2010 – olli mitchell

Well Winter has truly arrived now…

As we head towards longer nights and colder days we can thank our lucky stars for the distractions of Halloween Night at Annabel’s, where you can quench your thirst with shots of Bloody Mary and our special spooky cocktails!

So to all Frankenstein’ monsters, Wicked Witches and people with white linen sheets thrown over their heads, Annabel’s Cabaret is calling you to its chamber of horrors…….

With top band Spyders providing some devilish music as our soundtrack, help yourself to one of three special and spooky cocktails designed by our bartenders to help you find your wild side! Get your fangs and start sucking!!!!!…Our first is the “Silver Bullet”, the only sure fire way to rid yourself of a Werewolf, not to mention your inhibitions, with this by your side you’ll be safe for sure in midst of all those ghosts and ghouls. It’s a beguiling combination of Gin, citrus and peach bitters, sweetened with a dash of sugar.The “Zombie Killer” is a twist on the classic rum based cocktail and it’s guaranteed to rouse you from your weekday slumbers. Combining lime, three types of rum and a trickle of ‘blood’ it’s a real Caribbean voodoo treat that should make your night go off with a bang!After you have done with your Zombies and Werewolves you might feel the need for some “Bloodlust”, a wicked wine cobbler that proves its so easy to be naughty and nice all at once.

If you hadn’t guessed we love Halloween here at Annabel’s so why not become a creature of the night and join us in all things spooky, scary and sexy on Saturday 30^th October!