One Hell of a Party

The other evening I found myself at a party thrown by Hendrick's gin and Nerve.com, and it was probably the best spirit-sponsored event I've ever attended-and I've been to quite a few.  Dress code was Edwardian or Victorian Burlesque and the crowd went all out with their costumes, leaving you with the sense of being in some marvelous Bermuda Triangle cocktail lounge, populated with glamorous missing persons from centuries past who'd all resurfaced here for this party. The energy level of the place, buoyed by the enlivening, liberating  gin cocktails, was in the rafters, as you see in these photos from Nikola Tmandzidc.

The super cool (pronounced 'soop-air kool') French outfit Experimental Cocktail Club was imported for the night to make their trademark authentic vintage and gonzo original drinks, as well as raise some raffish hell.The Experimental Cocktail Club is a both a bar in Paris and the trio of Parisian barmen who own it and whose mandate seems to be to blend extreme barmanship with extreme fun. They are a rock and roll S.W.A.T. team of bartenders, the depth of  whose cocktail erudition is matched only by their commitment to balls-out fun--they mix drinks like angels and party like an off-duty rugby team. When I left the party around 12:30 they were spraying the crowd, anointing them, really, with slugs of gin shaken out of a Hendrick's bottle. The crow in the tiny upstairs bar threw their hands up and offered up their breasts  to the blessing. For more on the party visit my cocktail website, Embury.