King’s Ginger marks King Edward VII’s 172 birthday

db‘s Livia Xin headed out to join the King’s Ginger team for a lunch to celebrate King Edward VII’s 172 birthday.

The King’s Ginger birthday cake

King Edward VII, enjoyed living the high life and his greatest passions are said to have been “fine wining, dining and the very best cigars.”

The King’s Ginger was formulated by Berry Bros in 1903 for King Edward VII. The liqueur was commissioned by the Royal Physician to stimulate and revivify His Majesty whilst exposed to the elements on morning rides in his new horseless carriage.

The Birthday lunch took place in the historic Berry Bros & Rudd Directors dining room and also featured a King Edward comedy act to keep everyone thoroughly entertained throughout the lunchtime.

“The idea is that people could have a chance to know each other over cocktails and for us its an entertain. Our business is all about entertain. We’ve been doing this for over 300 of years and we are doing pretty well”, said Ronnie Cox, Brands Heritage Director of King’s Ginger.

In terms of the business, Ronnie told db that: “We have expanded our business overseas, we have our operations in the United State and Hong Kong, Singapore. As a brand with hundreds of years history, believe it or not, 26% of our sales are made from online sales.”

The lunch saw four cocktails served by Harvey Nichols Head Bartender Ian Goodman. The cocktail named “Edwardian Fashioned” was the highlight of the tasting. It was strained over an ice ball into a Brandy balloon glass and garnished with candied ginger jelly cube.

“The attractiveness of this drinks is the hardness of the ice. It will still sitting there for probably 45 minutes still hardly melted, so you can taste the chill of the drink without too much dilution when you drinking it”, said Ian.

“It’s a very traditional combination of flavours. The first reference to cocktail was in late 1700, it was Gin and ginger, so this is a very traditional and classic mix”, said one of the guests.