AN ALTERNATIVE MEMORIAL EVENT, USING THEMED COCKTAILS AND STORY-TELLING
Four “Liquid Memorial” cocktails, especially designed by Caspar Below for the 2012 Camberwell Arts Festival and the Stormbird pub. These historical cocktails, new creations and variations of modern classics have been introduced to commemorate local stories, characters, occasions and events. For the price of a drink, punters could own a piece of it.
The Ruskin Shooter – An enlightened drink of white vermouth, gin and Kümmel
A drink in honour of the Camberwell-based Victorian artist and critic John Ruskin. After a harrowing experience at the Father Redcap music hall, he found that there was no truth in art and is rumoured to have had a vision on Camberwell Green. Shortly after his vision, he asked his friend Oldfield to include the biblical scene of Sin Entering Into the World (Romans 5:12) in the design of the ornamental east window at nearby St Giles.
Order this drink to come to your senses.
The Stop and Search-A southeasterly gale of mint and brandy on ice
A chilly start to the evening, with a predicted increase in roadside stop and searches. With numbers of pre-crime arrests anticipated to go up during the Olympic season, highs of oppression and profiling may cause strong winds later on.
Turn yourself in and ask at the bar for a Stop and Search.
The Camber Tosh – A murky mixture of dark rum, cassis and ice
A beverage of superficial benefits, enjoy the Camber Tosh to commemorate generations of people who travelled to the Camber Well, believing it would provide relief from their ailments.
The Camber Well was rediscovered in 2009 in a back garden on Camberwell Grove by a local archaeologist. With usage of the well possibly going back as far as 3000 years, its reputation for healing the crippled may have given the well its name of “camber”, from Latin “camurus” for crooked or bent.
Today crooked or bent people still have a thriving business in Camberwell, peddling false hope and quick money to both the gullible and greedy.
The Bitter End – The finite taste of dark rum and blackstrap molasses
A drink not only for the anaemic, the Bitter End is a memorial drink to the disappointed Camberwell revellers of social change, who didn’t get to benefit from the fruit of their labour.
Raise a toast to those trade unionists, radicals, those rawdy people on Camberwell fair, the NUWC, those chartists, squatters and mad campaigners on the green and those abortionists, civil rights, anti-racism and housing campaigners, feminists and republicans in the backrooms of pubs.
Order the Bitter End with a straight back and the determined look of the underdog in your eye.