Imagine bringing together the boutique suppliers of food, drink and unique innovative art to a warehouse in the middle of Dalston and you’ll start to get a feel for what Towards A Fluid State was all about. Everything was thought down to the littlest detail and every corner had surprises at all turns.
Not really knowing what to expect was part of the fun to it. All we knew when we bought the tickets is that the event would be located somewhere near Dalston, and even the wet weather and rain didn’t stop us from having a good time. The entrance was small, nothing more than a door down a dark alley (although you did have a blindingly obvious big arrow pointing should you look down from the high street). From there, you enter “passport control” where the lovely ladies behind The Tasting Sessions gives you your passports and the well-formed box that would hold your drinks and bite-sized foods. Any “flights of experience” you bought also end up stamped inside, alongside a free drink (randomly picked from each of the different tasting stands). Each stamp buys an experience, often a combination of three tipples from a particular type of spirit, combined with matching bite sized morsels.
The organisers divided the warehouse into differently themed rooms, centred around the unique combinations of food and drink, all compete with different types of entertainment. It’s hard to describe my favourite with the strong smells of La Fromagerie Cheese and Whiskey emanating from one (cleverly masking any smells that happened to escape from the restrooms) or the huge dining table near the Gin room atop which two roasted pig’s heads sat complete with sunglasses at night, contrasting the rest of the decadence surrounding them.
Our first “flight of experience” was easy, with a sampling of cold sake, provided by Akashi-Tai, and wonderfully tasting Japanese food provided by Tsuru (located near Southwark). A big fan of black sesame, we all agreed that the black sesame mochi was a definite highlight with mixed reactions to some of the different types of sake present. Present company preferred the classical flavours brought by one of the cleaner flights, although I was particularly interested by the more sharp flavours brought by the darkened sake shot.
We followed this with our free drink, provided by the Cognac stand which I went for the “Courvoisier Cooler.” Described as, “A generous serving of Courvoisier Exclusif lengthened with cloudy apple juice, topped with ginger beer, served long with ice” it definitely helped me cool down from the warmth starting to generate from both the spirits and the body heat generated from all the people present.
Some of our party, more particularly hungry swapped their next “flight of experience” for the roast hog meal, which I chose to take over to the Gin stand to watch one of the cocktail-meisters from the London Cocktail Club work his magic forming, “Sage, mint and lemon caviar” using some interesting chemical reactions. They also introduced me to the Chase Distillery’s unique Gin blend which really hit the spot filled with so much flavour. I was definitely pretty happy to give it a go although slightly disappointed I wasn’t able to yet find it anywhere to buy.
We found ourselves with some “flights of experience” and decided to enjoy ourselves back with various congacs, and with the more dessert-sized bites including a slightly salted caramel lollipop, a small Portugese custard tart, and a dark chocolate truffle matching each of the different spirits. Some of the cognacs we tried were really smooth (I think they were the more than 30 year old ones) and with so much depth of flavour.
I remember wanting to leave the stronger whiskey flavours to last, but found ourselves at the end of their night where they’d almost run out of the cheese. By this time, they were happy to sample some of the more interesting blends of whiskey including some lovely single malts provided by Highland Park and Macallan.
I have to really put my hands together to thank the organisers, suppliers and all the people that put the event on. I love the passion the boutique suppliers demonstrated about their products, I love the interesting atmosphere and people that turned up and the quality of the whole experience made the whole night very enjoyable. It certainly helped that the food and drink were top notch as well.
Well done all for taking us Towards a Fluid State.
