We think of park drinking and we think of electric neon bottles of cider and falling asleep at 2pm. We think of students and vagrant Ian Beale and those with nowhere else to go. But while those lifestyle park drinkers keep the industry running 12 months a year, we fickle fly-by-nights with our bottled beers only treat park drinking as a seasonal hobby. Felix Cohen is here to change that.
“Drinking in the park is great, because all of the usual rules don’t apply,” says Cohen, the head bartender of Hackney’s Every Cloud. “Spill your drink? Made an ant’s day. You’re outside, doing inside things, but with no queues, no bad DJs and countless trees to pee behind or make out under. Alfresco everything.”
Cohen’s tip for classy park drinking? Mixing Ting (a fizzy grapefruit drink) with everything, to make a breezy summer punch – like his Sherrily Temple. “That bottle of Tio Pepe that’s always confused you in your local off licence is what you’re looking for here. It’s great with tonic, lemonade, on its own and it’s perfect with the ham and olives you’ve bought on the way.”
Pre-mixing a two-litre bottle of cocktail is a good way to get warm, fuzzy drunk (because you can control the alcohol content) and makes for a fuss-free park drink. “The classic Ting spirit is Wray & Nephew rum, but if you’re setting aside a long, boozy afternoon you probably don’t want to go with that much ABV. Mix it with the sherry, a splash of grenadine (or Ribena) and a squeeze of lemon.”
Tony Conigliaro, founder of east London cocktail bar Untitled, has plans to take park drinking to the next level. As well as making Untitled’s famous negronis available on Deliveroo this summer, Conigliaro’s Hello Kitty is a summery mix of gin and raspberry flavours.
“It’s a fun drink we created for group parties and is perfect for the warmer days outside,” he says. “Raspberry and rose is a great flavour combination, and we balance it with fresh lemon juice and a touch of malic acid so that the result is juicy, sweet and sour.”
Jim Wrigley, bar operations manager at Clerkenwell’s Bourne & Hollingsworth (and creator of Making Thermos’t of the Sun) has a nifty idea for keeping your precious park cargo cold: mix it in a flask. “When you think of a Thermos you invariably think of hot cuppas. But this genius bit of kit doesn’t just keep things hot – it also maintains the frosty temperature of any drink you might require on a summer’s day after work in the park. Simply mix the ingredients the night before, leave overnight in the fridge and fill the Thermos with it before you leave the house (taking care to strain out the mint leaves, in the case of this recipe).”
So, next time you’re doing park drinkies, avoid the snaking queue for overpriced tins at the nearest newsagent, stop doing that thing where you buy a bottle of rosé then trek half a mile into the middle of the park forgetting a bottle opener, and instead eat an entire share-sized bag of Doritos to yourself and enjoy a refreshing park cocktail. We will reclaim park drinking. One flask of alcohol at a time.
Here are three recipes for you to try:
Sherrily Temple
Mix up in a 2ltr bottle
fino sherry 700ml
Ting 2-litre bottle
grenadine (or Ribena) 200ml
lemons 6
Hello Kitty
Chill before serving
gin 500ml
raspberry syrup 250ml
sugar syrup 250ml
lemon juice 250ml
malic acid 1g
rosewater 10ml
vanilla extract 10ml
soda water 1.5 litres
Making Thermos’t of the Sun
Per drink (x6 to fill a 750ml Thermos)
light rum 40ml
lime juice 25ml
peach liqueur 20ml
honey water (1 part honey to 1 part water, stirred) 20ml
mineral water 20ml
mint leaves 3 or 4
