Why Cocktail Week leaves me shaken not stirred - Kevan Christie

Dark storm clouds have been gathering this week as an air of despondency lingers heavy in the atmosphere.

A general sense of unease has descended across the land as we put paid to the phoney war and prepare for the great ideological battle to come, with families divided and lifelong friends at each other’s throats.

Traditionalists will be pitched against modernists in a battle for the heart and soul of this once great nation and institutions thought to be at the very bedrock of our civilised society will be faced with the stark choice to either embrace the future or wither on the vine, against a tidal wave of ‘progress’.

I am of course talking about the momentous announcement that will see garden centre giant Dobbies team up with Edinburgh Cocktail Week (ECW) to launch their ‘brand new concept eatery’ – The Garden Hatch as part of an outdoor street-food line up.

This collaboration marks a sea change for the much-loved brand and appears to be driven by modernist reformers at the company’s head office in Lasswade.

I nearly choked on my blueberries when a trusted confidant pinged me an email from the PR ahead of the launch.

A sample paragraph read: ‘A must-try on the menu is a Scottish twist on a Mexican classic, the ‘Scotch-os’ – Nachos with Haggis, Black Pudding, Black Beans, Cheese and Pico de Gallo – something to taco about!’

This was met with my all too familiar outburst, which older colleagues have learned to ignore as younger reporters ask – ‘why is that guy shouting at his computer screen and kicking the photocopier?’

Turns out Dobbies will form 
part of next month’s new forest-themed extension of the Cocktail Village providing pop-up bars and giving punters a dark enchanted space featuring a wigwam, forest floor, canopy and wait for it...giant toadstools under a twinkling star sky.

If we tolerate this then our traybakes will be next.

Dobbies have clearly been led astray here, so I forgive them but will be monitoring this situation closely and I can’t see the main faces on the Fife garden centre scene allowing this sort of hipster shenanigans to pollute the Kingdom.

The real villains of the piece, however, are Edinburgh Cocktail Week and the cooncil who are trying their damndest to turn our Capital city into a year long booze-fuelled holiday resort.

Ahead of the opening of that giant Johnnie Walker offie in the West End, the powers that be have granted permission for The Cocktail Village to set up camp in Festival Square and over 70 bars will allow you to embark on a ‘cocktail adventure’ around the city. There’s also rooftop cocktail domes at The Glasshouse Hotel which offer you an exclusive opportunity to take in views of ‘the city’s iconic skyline while snapping Instagram-worthy pictures’....

Alternatively, you can buy six cans of Carlsberg Special Brew before drinking them up Arthur’s Seat where the views are to say the least – panoramic.

A wristband system will be in operation during ECW, much like the one your local swimming pool used to operate – but to my knowledge no guidelines have been issued on whether ducking or petting will be allowed.

The wristbands cost £13.50 if you want to get blootered for the whole week and retail at £8 if you just fancy a weekend sesh. Of course this will just allow you entry to the Cocktail Village and Forest and the Rooftop Cocktail Domes – the actual cocktails cost you £4 a pop after you’ve bought the wristband.

I’ve no doubt this celebration of idiocy will be well received among Instagram types and those who think gin was first invented in 2014 as patrons clamour to take pictures of jet-lagged avocados and goblets of flavoured ethanol.

However, the organisers of the ECW have made improvements and are obviously hoping there’s no repeat of the inaugural event two years ago when bars taking part ran dry after 7,000...cocktailers? – converged on the city centre.

Now, I’ve been known to like a drink or 12 as much as the next person and although I’ve stopped I sometimes hanker for a strawberry daiquiri on a wet Tuesday afternoon in February but all of this strikes me as a bit of carry on.

For a start the attraction of cocktails is that they’re easy to drink and taste like juice – a quick and easy way to get steaming while pretending you’re a celebrity.

I must confess the whole thing had me a trifle confused as I always thought Martini was that dodgy stuff in your mum and dad’s drinks cabinet and I could never work out why James Bond liked that. What started out as the Edinburgh Cocktail Weekend has now been extended to a week, the same one as when the local schools are on holiday which makes for an interesting clash.

Drop the kids off at the museum and meet your mates for cocktails.

Surely that won’t end in tears.