Cocktails & Bars

And the Best Bar in Wales and the West is....

With bars from Cardiff, Bournemouth, Bristol and St Ives in Cornwall making up our top four, this new Wales and West category at the Class Bar Awards was very competitive, with Lab 22 prevailing.

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06 June, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Which bar was named Best in London & the Southeast?

London is world famous for its bar scene, so to win here - in the CBA's Best Bar in London & the Southeast (sponsored by The Busker) category - is big. With a final four of award-winning bars from some of the biggest names in the business, the reliably brilliant Satan's Whiskers won out.

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05 June, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Review: Crossroads

Crossroads was among the few good things to emerge from the pandemic, a compact, subterranean cocktail bar in a former Victorian toilet in Camden. Its new-ish home on Newington Green is comparatively palatial, but with all the charm and pioneering spirit of the original – a quintessential neighbourhood bar with a sustainable, forward-thinking approach.

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01 June, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

The CBAs' Hotel Bar of the Year 2023

With so many hotel bars in the conversation to be our favourites, making a finalists’ list of four in the Hotel Bar of the Year (sponsored by Everleaf Drinks) category is an achievement in itself.

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31 May, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Meet our Bar Manager of the Year

To many the biggest individual award of the Class Bar Awards, Bar Manager of the Year sponsored by Italicus, was won by James Wheeler, a finalist in the category last year.

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31 May, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Review: Lunar, Glasgow

Glasgow’s food and drink scene continues its upward trend with the arrival of Lunar, a wine and cocktail bar on the south side of the city. From the team behind popular West End beer shop Grunting Growler, the focus is on fresh flavours from natural wines and seasonally-driven cocktails.

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31 May, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Review: Velvet at Corinthia London

Velvet was one of the big launches of the last six months. Hamish Smith dropped by this spring to review Corinthia London's latest bar.

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23 May, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Review: The Commons Club, Edinburgh

CLASS' Scotland reviewer Blythe Robertson pops by The Commons Club

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22 May, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Review: The Canteen, Liverpool

The Class review team lands in Liverpool for the launch of Canteen.

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16 May, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Review: Project Halcyon, Manchester

The Class review team is in Manchester to pay Project Halcyon a visit.

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15 May, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

A bartenders' guide to Edinburgh

Sian Buchan takes a tour around the bar jewels in the Scottish capital’s crown.

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10 May, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

International spotlight: Class explores Himkok in Oslo

Continuing our series of spotlights on pioneering international bars, Hamish Smith visits Himkok in Oslo, Norway. Bar manager Maroš Dzurus talks us through what makes this bar so different.

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10 May, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Julio Bermejo: how I make the Tommy's Margarita

Hamish Smith gets the full skinny on the Tommy’s Margarita from the creator himself, Julio Bermejo.

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04 May, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

The New Fashioned - how the classic of classics has changed

The Old Fashioned is being given a makeover, catering to demands for lower-abv and culinary cocktails. Tyler Zielinski looks at some of the twists that are available.

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02 May, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Monica Berg's bar diary: Spring

In the first of a new series, Monica Berg from Tayēr + Elementary walks us through her approach to seasonal drinks, opening up the calendar to spring.

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13 April, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Class Bar Awards 2023 finalists announced

Class is delighted to announce the finalists of the Class Bar Awards 2023, ahead of the ceremony at Battersea Arts Centre in London on May 23rd.

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06 April, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Cocktail freezing techniques with Panda & Sons' Iain McPherson

Bartenders are used to using heat to intensify flavour, but what about sub-zero temperatures? Iain McPherson of Panda & Sons explains how it all works.

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29 March, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

"The Dorchester has awoken" writes Hamish Smith in his review of the hotel's new Vesper Bar

Hamish Smith heads to The Dorchester and the grande dame hotel's new semi-themed Vesper Bar.

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17 March, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Seamless: the story of Connaught Bar's quest for greatness as it turns 15

For the Connaught Bar, excellence has become the daily routine. Hamish Smith catches up with Ago Perrone, Maura Milia and Giorgio Bargiani to understand better how, after 15 years of the bar, the guest experience only gets better.

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16 March, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

CLASS Spring 2023 edition launches

Access the digital magazine here. Not subscribed? Bartenders can sign up for a digital or hard copy here. Inside this issue

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16 March, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Satan's Whisker's Kevin Armstrong on Roundbuilding - a book about the bartending method

Hamish Smith catches up with Satan’s Whiskers owner Kevin Armstrong, who tells us about his and Daniel Waddy’s book Roundbuilding – a rare attempt to document the bartending method

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08 March, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

A bartender's guide to Nottingham

Liam O'Brien of Brass Monkey is your tour guide to Nottingham.

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07 February, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

International spotlight: Class explores Line in Athens

On a quest for inspiration, Hamish Smith visits Line in Athens, where he catches up with co-owner Vasilis Kyritsis who talks us through his pathbreaking new bar.

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02 February, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

The Manhattan - its history and falsehoods

A drink with a colourful, if erroneous, backstory, the Manhattan remains a classic among classics. Clinton Cawood traces its mukey origins.

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02 February, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Techniques and trends ...Koji cocktails

Tyler Zielinski's first in a series of pieces on new techniques and trends narrows in on koji.

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16 January, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Playing with fire: Anistatia Miller & Jared Brown's trials on smoking spirits

Anistatia Miller & Jared Brown enjoy making a meal out of smoked spirits, thanks to a happy accident that revealed meat flavours from a roast could happily marry with the wood aromas.

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11 January, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

CLASS Bar Awards 2023 opens for entries

The CLASS Bar Awards, which returns on Tuesday 9th May in London, is now open for submissions.

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05 January, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Why hot cocktails don’t have to just be relegated to Christmas

Hot cocktails don't have to play to the silly, saccharine and suffocatingly seasonal side of drinks. Millie Milliken reports.

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05 January, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Hamish Smith on Sweeties: 'Two hits and four misses – and misses ballooned over the crossbar.'

Hamish Smith visits one of the big London launches of 2022, Sweeties at The Standard hotel, to see if the 1970s can ever be grounds for (good) cocktail inspiration.

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03 January, 2023

Cocktails & Bars

Tony Pescatori on his new bar Alma

Tony Pescatori talks to Hamish Smith about his Nightjar journey and his fresh start at the newly opened Alma.

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29 November, 2022