On 17th March we celebrated Irish Christmas for the fourth successive year over here at The Sun Tavern. We spent the evening honouring the man who helped rid the motherland of snakes… and drinking a fair bit of the pure drop to boot.
Festivities got underway with a spot of traditional sporting activity on our big screen – with the hotly-anticipated England vs Ireland rugby ending with a fitting victory for the boys from the Emerald Isle to help us all get into the patriotic swing of things.
Spirits high, come the evening our favourite shucker, Oyster Boy, was on hand to add some sustenance to the night ahead.
He was dishing out the Oysters for nothing, taking a break from his regular vending activities down Columbia Road, Broadway Market and Leyton Food Market, to bring a bit of East London tradition to the table.
On top of this, for this year’s celebrations we teamed up with our good friends at Dublin’s Teeling Distillery to create three Teeling-based cocktails – all exclusive to the day itself – dubbed ‘Golden Triangle’, ‘Pear Drop’, and ‘Revival’.
Revival – Teeling Small Batch, Calvados, Pimento Dram, Apple, Lime, topped w/ Ginger Ale.
Pear Drop – Teeling Single Malt, Rinquinquin, White Port, topped w/ Sekforde.
Golden Triangle – Teeling Single Grain, Ruby Port, Demarara, Lemon & Thyme.
Predictably, the cocktail went down a treat and the pure drop was in fill flow come sundown. Spirits were kept Himalayan once Umbrella Radio’s DJs took to the decls with a Rebel ‘n’ Roll set until the small hours.
With a few of us still kicking come the morn, we stretched the festivities over two days.
Sunday saw us mixing some Bloody Murphys – a Bloody Mary with an Irish slant courtesy once more of the good people at Teeling – and welcoming an Irish trad band through our doors in the early afternoon to transport all of us to our respective happy places.
All in all, a great night full of good craic and plenty of good vibes..
Hope to see you all down Bethnal Green way next time round!