Apotheca

Well hello! I have been so busy with work over the past couple of weeks, all so that I have enough money to go to America with. I did say I would write when I had something interesting enough to say, and so here is something interesting I did recently.

When: Saturday 21st January 2012

Where: Apotheca, Thomas Street, Manchester

Who With: A group of my fabulous work friends.

This is Apotheca. It is has the tiniest sign on the front of the building. If you are familiar with Manchester and it's Northern Quarter, then it is opposite Blu on the corner of Thomas Street.

Me and my friends went to Apotheca to do one of their Cocktail masterclasses. It cost us £20 each and lasted 2 hours. We recieved 3 cocktails each for this price.

This is one of the barmen who did the class, and the Mojito's that he was about to prepare for us. That was the first drink we had and it was selected for us. I'm not really a fan of Mojito's to be honest. I prefer sweet things and this really was very minty indeed, but I'm sure if Mojito's are your thing, then this would have been a fantastic one indeed.



For my second drink I was allowed to select my own choice, and I chose a 'Nuts and Berries' cocktail.

This is a drink to-die-for. It was sooo good. It tasted like a blackforest gateau. You'll have to excuse the poor quality of photos as my camera seems have gone shit. I have now purchased a new one as I can't have a dodgy camera with me in Jamaica or America. He created this drink in the usual way by putting the various juices and liqueurs into a shaker and then into a chilled glass. He then (as you can see in the pic) poured a cream layer on top and then dusted chocolate powder from a height whilst setting the chocolate powder alight. It smelled a-mazing! This has now joined 'Pornstar Martini' as a joint favorite cocktail.

For my third drink, I was again allowed to make my own choice, except this time I went behind the bar, and under the guidance of the barman, created the drink myself which was such good fun! This time I chose a 'Dirty Pop'.

These are just a few piccies from me behind the bar creating my 'Dirty Pop'! As you can see I put a lot of effort into the shaking the mixture haha! I had the lovely task os smashing up maraschino cherries in the glass, measuring and pouring the liqueurs and then shaking the mixture and adding the finishing the touches, which included a packet of popping candy! I poured the candy into the drink and it made for an interesting experience of everytime I took a sip of the cocktail it started popping like mad in my mouth! Again, another fabulous cocktail which I thoroughly enjoyed, even more so because I had made it myself!

I highly reccommend this experience to anyone. £20 per person is cheap for this session as it really is top quality. The cocktails are first class, the staff were fantastic and we were in our own private bar so we were free to be as ridiculous as we wanted to be. If you wanted to pop in for just a drink though, again I urge you to as most of these amazing cocktails cost only around £6.50 which is cheap compared to other places such as Room and Cloud 23 which are around £9-£10 a pop.

Check out Apotheca's website here for more information .

We were actually staying overnight in Manchester as a bit of a birthday weekend for my friend Hayley. Rather than staying in a hotel we decided to hire an apartment for the night so we could all go back to eat, drink and get ready to continue the festivities. Here is a picture of the apartment. If i'm honest I took the picture the day after when we had cleaned up because I had forgotten to the night before! The apartment was lovely though and worked out at about £28 each, which is cheaper than a Premier Inn and we were able to cook ourselves a fry-up in the morning!

After the cocktail class we went back to the apartment and had a feast of pizza, nachos, crisps and take-out chips (which are the best!). We then had a slice of this amazing birthday cake. It was an indulgent chocolate cake covered in icing, my perfect kind of cake! It really was fit.

This was my outfit for the evening. I ordered this dress off ASOS in the sale. It is a Motel dress and I chose to wear it with pearl stud earrings, a gold locket and my trusty rose-gold Topshop stillettos. I could walk miles in those shoes! I recieved a lot of compliments for the dress, but in all honesty it is a dress best worn when I haven't been stuffing my face on pizza, nachos and cake and spent most of the night feeling a bit uncomfortable as this was a second-skin kind of dress.

And that was my weekend in Manchester! The next 3 or 4 weeks are being spent working for me, most particularly at the weekend unfotunatley. My next event is my friend's hen do (the one who's wedding I am going to Jamaica for). I can't say where I am going as she does read this blog and it is a surprise but I will certainly fill you in on all the details and of the little surprises we have in store for Jenna and her Hen Night. I have also made several purchases recently, mostly in preparation for Jamaica (which is only 8 and a half weeks away!!!) and America so I shall do a seperate blog post about those when I find a spare minute.

Until then!

xxxx