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Chilled Bars
Taking a quiet stroll along the beach in the throes of the midday Sun in Brighton, we head off the promenade to investigate a small food market or “food festival” at it appears to be officially labelled. There are a lot of stalls bringing shipments of nuts, sweets, cheeses and cider from homeland and overseas from France and all is bustling. Pretty soon the walking becomes thirsty work and we spot a white tent erected at the far end of the festival. There is an arrangement of tables and chairs inside the tent and in one corner, a makeshift bar serving what looked like bargain cocktails. The barman jokes about how we must have been drinking all night and for some reason prepares drinks for us and some more that he just leaves on the side of the bar. His t-shirt donning the name of the venue makes me think twice before having the drink before me. Hastily we grab a table from the selection just outside the tent, otherwise populated with old folk drinking tea. The drinks were watered down sugar and I couldn’t tell if the drink was alcohol or just bitter. But for such a low price and honky-tonk spewing out in the background it was easy to see how so many could get duped, just the allure of the ice in my drink was enough on this rather warm day.
Overall a bit of a con, a couple of poorly dressed locals who have no idea how to make a good cocktail just making a few bob out of the thirsty - not commendable behaviour - 3/10
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Zoe Cunliffe // Nov 26, 2009 at 8:59 pm
HI Greg,
It is with huge disappointment that I write this email having only just discovered your review of Chilled Bars, our mobile cocktail bar company at the Brighton food and drink festival.
Myself and my husband take great pride in our business and have spent a last few months trying to launch it, hence the affordable prices over the weekend you visited. My husband has a very extensive past in the cocktail world over the last 10 years, during this time he has worked at Babington House, The Fifth Floor in Harvey Nics, Blanch House, freelance for Squeeze, Sweet and Chilli and full time for 3 years for Shaker Bar school in London, he is currently teaching the first course in the country in Molecular Mixology and is the drinks master for Right Gin. As well as this he was picked to be one of the Courvoisier 500 rising stars of 2008 in the drink industry. So with all this under his belt he we have put together our own company and tried to make a go of it following redundancy earlier in the year.
I’m really sorry that you thought our drinks to be ice filled and sugary as we always ensure that we use the finest ingredients and would never dream of under pouring, therefore we would like to take this opportunity to invite you to come to one of our Cocktail master classes which we shall be holding next year.
If this would be of some interest to you please let us know and we shall be in touch with a date in the new year.
Your sincerely
Zoe and Myles Cunliffe
2 phoebe oliver // Dec 20, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Hi Greg,
I was surprised to read your comments when I was searching for Chilled Bars contact details on google. We have used them before for a work function (although I mislaid thier card!) and always found Myles and Zoe to be extrememly professional and our clients (many of whom are 5 star Caribbean developments so used to a certain level of service) were very happy.
I know they are a young company and Myles and Zoe have put an awful lot of time and effort building thier business and reputation as they told me when they met - perhaps you might take Zoe up on her offer above of another chance before slating them so publically? I would hate to see their business suffer because of one persons point of view - its where the internet can go so wrong I think.
Yours,
Phoebe
Director of Oliver Relations
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