A cocktail celebrating Birmingham’s rich and diverse food scene has been created as part of a campaign by Visit Birmingham, to mark English Tourism Week.
The Birmingham Cup, designed by Luke Pearson, bartender at The Lost & Found, combines coriander and cardamom – key flavours of the fragrant cuisine of India and Pakistan now synonymous with Birmingham – and Broker’s Gin, which has been produced in the city for over 200 years.
The cocktail was created as part of VisitEngland’s Cities campaign, highlighting the great cities around England to domestic visitors, which is part of a series of VisitEngland RGF-funded campaigns focusing on a range of themes including Romantic Getaways, English Seaside and Coastal Escapes.
Kate Taylor, general manager at The Lost & Found, said: “We’ve developed a great reputation for cocktails, created in-house by our talented team; they’re often twists on classics and a little bit out of the norm, so I guess that’s why we were asked to create this unique cocktail for English Tourism Week. As well as the locally distilled gin, it has key elements of curry and spice which are a big part of our food culture; we think drinkers will love it.”
Birmingham’s growing reputation as a culinary capital has received both national and international acclaim; last year, New York magazine hailed its ‘burgeoning food scene’, while in 2011 Olive magazine declared Birmingham ‘Britain’s foodiest town’.
This ‘foodie status’ was also reflected in figures from the most recent Visitor Survey by the Regional Observatory, one of the UK’s leading local and regional research consultancies, which showed food and drink offering was the key attraction for a third (31%) of visitors to Birmingham.
Emma Gray, director of marketing services at Visit Birmingham, the city’s leisure tourism programme, said: “Birmingham is a foodie haven, and this is cleverly reflected in The Birmingham Cup cocktail. We have more Michelin-starred restaurants than any English city outside London, an award-winning street food scene and a plethora of food markets and festivals. As the birthplace of Cadbury chocolate, Bird’s Custard and the Balti, the city tickles every tastebud.”
The Birmingham Cup cocktail will be available at the bar on Bennett’s Hill during English Tourism Week (March 29th to April 6th). It will be priced at £5 Monday to Friday from 5pm-8pm and £7.50 at all other times.
Try The Birmingham Cup at The Lost & Found – www.the-lostandfound.co.uk
