What's Happenin'?
Nikka Perfect Serve 2025
UK Top 10 Finalist
The Serve -
Synergy
Nikka Days - Umeshu Sake - Apricot Brandy - Toasted Macadamia & Bee Pollen Orgeat - Fresh lime
Built upon an exploration of balance and harmony, designed to showcase the delicate, approachable character of Nikka Days while enhancing its signature notes through carefully chosen flavours.
Nikka Days offers a beautifully soft malt profile with gentle orchard fruit, subtle florals, and a touch of smoke. I wanted to build a drink that respects this nuance — not overpowering it, but amplifying it through a combination of stone fruit, toasted nut, and harmonious viscosity. Umeshu Sake mirrors the whisky’s orchard notes with mellow plum sweetness and a gentle hit of tartness. Apricot brandy deepens the stone fruit profile, adding honeyed warmth without overpowering. Toasted macadamia and bee pollen orgeat introduces texture, nutty richness, and floral nuance that echo the whisky’s biscuity, botanical tones. Fresh lime provides essential acidity, lifting the palate and sharpening the whisky’s natural brightness.
Each element is chosen to listen — to move with the whisky, not against it.
A drink guided by the guest, the moment, and the transience that defines a perfect serve. This serve mirrors the bright stone fruit, malt, and floral notes beloved in the Scottish Highlands, which is home to me, and its focus on balance and simplicity reflects how both nations value craft that’s guided by instinct and tradition.
It honours the legacy of Masataka Taketsuru, whose journey from Scotland to Japan bridged two whisky worlds. A nod to that connection — a spirit and serve brought together in perfect Synergy.
Scottish Licensed Trade News
Spirit of the Sixties
Top 6 Finalist
The Serve -
Flowers In Her Hair
Lavender infused Absolut - Briottet Creme de Peche - Stone fruit cordial (cherries, lychees & plums) - Pink Soda - Garnished with edible flowers
Taking inspiration from the icon - Marsha P Johnson and her involvement in the gay rights movement.
Marsha P Johnson was one of the most prominent figures of the gay rights movement in the 60’s and 70’s. She was a hero. A black transgender woman who made such an impact in her short life. Alongside Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P Johnson founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), an organisation dedicated to sheltering young transgender individuals shunned by their families. She was also at the Stonewall Inn on the evening of June 28th 1969 when the riots begun. Stonewall ‘changed the landscape of homosexual society quite literally overnight’. Marsha was a frontline figure during the riots. In the wake of this, Marsha and Sylvia led a series of protests. She then began performing for a drag group called “Hot Peaches”. This then gained the attraction of Andy Warhol who painted and included her in his series “Ladies and Gentlemen”. In light of recent events in America with Donald Trump sharing an article including the pink triangle; a symbol used by nazi Germany to highlight a homosexual. I really wish we were taught about the events of stonewall and hero’s like Marsha P Johnson in school, it might let the world realise we just love who we love and want to be who we want to be.
Lavender infused Absolut celebrates lavender marriages and absolut being absolutely amazing supporters of the lgbt, briottet creme de peche works subtly and represents Marsha’s drag group, layering in some stone fruits for stonewall with a cordial consisting of cherries, lychees and some plums, sugar and acids, rounding off with pink soda to remind us of what’s happening today, 55 years on from the revolution that started a change. Here’s to Marsha and the LGBTQ+
