Hic-hic-hooray, Tippletown is back!

A couple of years ago, I attended a rum-based pop-up bar and lecture/shindig hosted by the bearded and inked impresarios behind London cult cocktail bar Trailer Happiness. What those chaps didn’t know about distilled alcoholic beverages made from sugar cane byproducts you couldn’t fill a thimble with. And while it ignited a close, personal relationship with the spirit that still exists for me today, I must add that my love of rum has since cost me a small fortune – in monetary terms, natch, but also in workplace productivity and replacement livers. I think it’s been worth it however, I now know my ?John Crow Batty? from my ?A?ejo?, even though those replacement livers are a bugger to source, never mind refit.

But back to the point of this post – there is one, I promise: the festival that had the rum-pushing hipsta-lushes over from London was Tippletown a Dublin celebration of top-shelf gargles and grogs run by grungy DIY bar collective: Bodytonic.

The festival runs again next month (November 18-20), with much of the slugging and chugging happening at The Mangled Turnip?Wigwam, on Dublin’s Abbey Street. There, one can expect three days of getting up close and personal with some of the world’s greatest drinks and their backstories through the mediums of tastings, demos, workshops and (drinking) games.

Tippletown is a free event (I can’t believe I’m writing this, I can’t even blag tickets), with the exception of a number of the workshop/pairing events that require tickets that will be on sale (well, maybe I can) over the coming weeks.

There is also rumour of a rum and cigar pairing class happening over the weekend, which is equal parts compelling and distressing, from a personal viewpoint … I mean, cigars are not cheap … and I know next to nothing of how to go about sourcing a set of replacement lungs.

Meanwhile, the seis?n finishes with a cocktail competition, and there is currently a call out to all Dublin barkeeps and cocktail fanciers to metaphorically pour their concoctions down the judges? throats … entry form and details HERE.

All of which leads us to the word ‘mixology?, which I have avoided using thus far because, well, isn’t it a travesty of a word? I mean, really … etc.