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Slideshow
The week in pictures
This week in celebrity drinks, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson took to social media to offer fans a sneak peek of his new Tequila distillery, which has been named Teremana.
Speculation that Johnson was planning a Tequila venture started in 2018, when his team applied to register the Mana trademark.
Since then, the star has been spanning photos of himself enjoying Tequila at every opportunity, whether relaxing at hime, on a fishing trip, or apparently as part of a post-workout snack.
On Wednesday, The Rock posted a photo with a large group of distillers, in front of a massive distillery, with the caption “The name is official: Ladies and gents, I proudly bring you, TEREMANA TEQUILA.”
Call us suspicious, but that sounds like he’s finally entered the game.
While we’re on celebrity drinks, having just joined Amazon Prime Video’s The Wine Show as a presenter, Hollywood heartthrob Dominic West has mentioned he’s keen to make his own English sparkling wine, and has his sights set on a vineyard in Wiltshire.
The Affair actor revealed the news to The Metro at the Harper’s Bazaar Women of the Year Awards this week.
“It’s the only good thing about global warming. We will be able to keep on making sparkling wine in England,” he said.
Also in celeb wines, Sting has partnered with Tuscan wine estate and Chiswick restaurant, Villa di Geggiano, to distribute his Il Palagio range in the UK.
Owned by the Bianchi Bandinelli family, Villa di Geggiano, which has exported its Chianti Classico wines to the UK since 1725, has faithfully recreated its sprawling Tuscan estate in restaurant form on Chiswick High Road in west London.
Sting and his wife Trudie Styler decided to partner with their Tuscan neighbours at their London address.
And in celebrity beer news, 80s pop star Rick Astley has once again teamed up with Danish brewer Mikkeller to open a second London bar, this time in Exmouth Market.
A pop-up bar at the site launched last weekend with the brewery and restaurant scheduled to open in March next year.
In work bonding exercises, on-trade supplier Ellis Wines hit Halloween hard.
Putting us all to shame, the two skeletons are Megan Clarke (wine buyer) and Holly Ellis (trainee sales manager), while head buyer Matthew Cooper is hiding underneath that pumpkin helmet.
And speaking of Halloween, on Thursday nigh db spent the night in Stoke Newington at the launch of Doña; the latest mezcal bar to crop up in London. db Wild Card brewer and The Wine Show presenter Jaega Wise enjoying a cocktail amongst a crowd of bright young things.
Doña might not be London’s first bar dedicated to agave spirits, but it is one of the first led exclusively by women.
Put together by friends Thea Cumming – founder of Dangerous Don mezcal – and Lucie Massey, the brains behind Cuppa Gumbo and Slap Ya Papa, Doña is a bar oozing with femininity. Massey told db that having more bars and businesses in the drinks industry led by women makes them a safer space for all.
“A work or nightlife environment’s culture tends to come from the top down”, she said, “and we’re proud to create a space that’s inclusive.”
At the other end of the gender identity spectrum, November marks the start of Movember, when men grow moustaches for charity.
However, Glasgow-based Drygate Brewing Co. invited bearded beer lovers to help change the face of men’s health, by shaving their own facial fur, on Thursday.
Drygate turned its on-site bar into a pop-up barbershop, where Movember supporters traded their whiskers for a pint of Bearface lager.
The barbershop was put together in collaboration with Legacy Gents, following the success of the brewery’s Barber Bash Glasgow competition in September.
Last week, Argentine wine label Viñalba teamed up with members club The Daisy in Manchester’s Northern Quarter; is a co-working space by day and subterranean cocktail den by night, for a consumer event with Argentinian food, wine and music, celebrating all things Viñalba. Winery owner, Diane Joyaux Fabre flew over from Argentina to present the wines herself.
Scotch whisky label BenRiach has teamed up with a Scottish artist to bring its sensory palette to life through a series of paintings inspired by the Speyside distillery’s landscape.
Artist Ellis O’Connor has been commissioned to create a trio of dramatic landscapes influenced by the 3 casks used to make up the BenRiach 10 Year Old.
The deconstruction of this expression will create three pieces of art that will be exhibited in Hackney’s underground bar, TT Liquor during Scotch Whisky Weekend in January 2020.
Johnnie Walker master blender, Dr Jim Beveridge, received an OBE from Her Majesty The Queen last week in recognition of his outstanding service to the Scotch Whisky industry throughout his 40-year career with Diageo.
Last week Wines of Argentina headed to both London and Edinburgh, hosting two tastings as part of its Barullo Sessions event series. With both themed tables and a sell-out masterclass programme, both events proved popular. Following the reception in Edinburgh, Wines of Argentina hopes to hold more events in the Scottish capital. Among the themes explored were the emergence of Cabernet Franc and the growing popularity of Argentine white wines, including Sémillon.