In Parts I and II of our Paris Cocktail Week 2018 guide we covered planning ahead and avoiding the over-indulgence that kills your endurance. So, what’s left? Let’s talk about how to get something out of Paris Cocktail Week 2018 beyond the 8-day window. There are plenty of practical takeaways that you can put to use all year long!
Learn the Secrets of Hometending: The past few years have seen lifestyle trends skewing towards cocooning and getting hygge with it. So, it’s not surprising to see this year’s Paris Cocktail Week focusing more on the home bar. Bartenders Secrets is a series of master classes designed to drop some cocktail knowledge on those who want to be a better home mixologists. Among the options: Nico of Bisou will teach you tricks for creating custom cocktails, while Hugo Vasquez of le Belair with give you tips on tweaking the classics to your own tastes. Over at the new Ground Control location near Gare de Lyon, the Cocktail Academy runs a class each day on different cocktails from the south American standby, Pisco Sour, to the modern classic, Gin Basil Smash. Or pick up a copy of l‘Art du Cocktail, the French edition of Regarding Cocktails written in the memory of and as an homage to late industry legend Sasha Petraske, by his wife Georgette Moger Petraske. She will be signing copies Saturday at La Librarie Gourmand and at an event during the week at Danico.
Grab the Limited-Edition Espresso Martini Cocktail: You might remember the bottled negroni of PCW17? It was created, distilled and bottled especially for Paris Cocktail Week and available at Julhès. This year sees a new bottled cocktail, and it’s the Espresso Martini – 100% made in Paris and conceived in collaboration with Brûlerie de Paris and Nicolas Julhès. And this year things are going more mainstream as you can pick it up at your local Monoprix as well as Julhès. Pick up a few so you can just chill and serve when you want to impress your guests with some fancy cocktails without going to all the fuss.
Discover New Spots All Year: With 75 bars, you’ll never get to them all in eight days – or, at least, I don’t recommend that you try for all of them. But, the great thing about the PCW bar list is the team behind the event put thought into the selection, so you can use it to discover new bars all year long even if you can’t get to them during the week. For me, some that haven’t been on my radar that are now thanks to PCW18 are: Amadeus, Le Five, Le Renard, The Shell, Manko…plus a few more. So put all of the new-to-you names on a list in our back pocket to try over the next few months.
And that’s a wrap! Now you can enjoy PCW not just this week but all year long.
