Cocktail Delivery Services

In lockdown we have seen some great things came out of small businesses. As most of you know I am a seasoned cocktail lover and occasional low key alcoholic (joke) and many cocktail delivery services have become available so I’ve put together a list with some short roundups of what’s available in and around Norfolk and many nationally too!!

With the 10 pm curfew putting people off either going out at all or making it very difficult to carry on the party, organisation is key these days if you want to get your groove on past 10:15pm. You can find out below where you can get your favourite cocktails premixed with fresh and quality ingredients and deliver to your door so you can carry on your party all night long with top quality, bar grade drinks.

Arboretum- The weird and wonderful Norwich bar/ antique shop with dead and living animal menagerie are offering selections of the unique, old world cocktails for collection, local and national delivery! Locally delivery can be the same day if ordered before 6pm- for the spontaneous among us. To collect this will be organised during opening times of the bar, be careful as you may leave with more than anticipated as everything in this crazy place is for sale, so a penchant for antiques and taxidermy might get you shopping!  These guys offer the service Tuesday-Saturday. Your drinks menu comes in select boxes, choose from…. gin box, scotch box, sour box, mixed box, sweet box, Navy rum, English vodka, berry, floral, wine and non-alcoholic. 3 x 200ml bottles of curious drinks to be consumed within 3 days. Prices start at £14 per box! Huzzah- check in our here.

Tipsy Jar- The lovely team of Laura and Ellie have created a lovely business of mixologist designed and premium quality cocktails which deliver locally and national. With a menu which is constantly being updated with fresh ideas and flavors to suit the seasons, the loyal and regular customers will never get bored if you like to mix it up and try new things! The design of the concept is that you receive you jar and your garnishes, including ice, you shake in the jar and serve to perfection in your favourite glass. The national format differs slightly where your liquid will be in a sachet and of course ice would melt in the post but these gals have thought of it all, whether you are drinking locally to Norfolk or further afield. They aim to ship all orders with in 2 working days, expect delivery within 3-4 working days. Any orders placed after 12pm Thursday will be shipped Monday to maintain freshness and delivery nationally in £6.50. If you are local, local being post codes NR1-NR14 then delivery is just £2.50 to your door! Tipsy Jar are operational Tuesday to Saturday and you can even order up to 5pm for same day delivery! As soon as you’re ready to drink follow the instructions and enjoy! Drinks can be stored for up to 7- 14 days! I have sampled many and I love the twists on the classics for a signature style. Fancy this one? Tip use code 3FOR30 Browse and order here

Edmunds- Edmunds are a stunning Suffolk based brand, with a belief that you can enjoy a top quality cocktail from home with minimal effort. These are available nationwide for £3.95 delivery. Pick from 1 litre of your fave cocktail for a party or night in, a mixed box of 6 x 100ml bottles or 6 of the same! These babies are bottled and made with sustainability at the forefront of their ethos and at £23.95 for a box of 6. You get the garnishes in the beautiful little box with the drinks, all you will need is a cocktail shaker and ice! Because of how this brand is packaged I really feel it would be a lovely gift, it’s extremely tasteful with a neoclassical design and looks really artisanal. Click here to take a look!

The Globe Trotter  This team started off with their beautiful horse box bar which is available for event hire and to be honest were probably the first people I came across locally offering fresh, mixologist quality cocktails, made ready for home consumption. They offer a selection of classics and originals in variable sizes from 500ml all the way up to the big daddy 5 LITRE – GIMME GIMME- If orders come in for Uk deliveries they send out the next day after ordering and that usually is a 4-5 working days delivery time, although next day can be an option. Local deliveries can be booked in and often they accept same day deliveries if placed in the morning. Locally there is a £5 delivery fee on anything Nr14 and further. The super strong cocktails over 20% you can keep for up to 30 days unopened and the lower % drinks up to 2 weeks, drink within 4 days once opened, posted Mon-Sat (the following day after you place the order), local delivery is  Thursday – Sunday! I sampled the Vanilla and Passionfruit Martini which is delicious and also the super strong Lychee Martini which was must to my liking at 22%. Thirsty? Order here

Cocktail Canaries-  Another great local business which I’ve not actually had the pleasure of trying personally but I have gifted to a friend, these guys offer a local delivery service of fresh bottled cocktails from 6 classics and 1 Norfolk special with a delivery radius of Norfolk (NR1-NR14, NR24-NR28 Surrey (KT1, KT10, KT12, KT13) which the heritage Norwich canary as their namesake, but this team have now branched out into bottled cocktails for national delivery and postbox cocktail pouches too! I’m loving the sound of the Jaffa Cake Negroni and the Honeycomb Old Fashioned! delivery from £3.50 for standard and more for next day and guaranteed and local delivery is free!!! Boom- get it here!

So who loves cocktails? They make a night right? So whatever tier you’re in, get an order in and plan you next great night in!

Thanks for reading,

H x

*Tipsy Jar, Arboretum, Edmunds and The Globe Trotter previously provided PR Samples to try not connected to this article.

Welcome to the #FoodSavvy challenge!!

So as we embark on a new month, I have taken on a brand new challenge! Along side the support of Hubbub and Norfolk and Suffolk County Councils I have been given the opportunity to share with you my experience and journey in becoming more #FoodSavvy!

In Norfolk and Suffolk alone we waste 113,000 tonnes of food waste which costs the average household an extra £810 per year and the tax payer just in these 2 counties an extra £12.6m per year!!! That’s hugely alarming right?? I’m really excited to be given the opportunity to get involved in hopefully learning new ways to reduce this personally in my household and also raise awareness to my surrounding counties and further afield!

So, if you’ve been following me a while, I like to think; and I hope you’ll agree, I’m pretty savvy anyway and from my personal financial situation over the last few years, I’ve taught myself to become more #FoodSavvy and am really excited to see what new ideas I can take on board to drive this even further in my life! I’m a genuine lover of food and it sickens me to see food go to waste, so I always try to keep it creative in the kitchen and let nothing avoidable go in the bin but I know there’s still more to do!

This week, from tomorrow, Monday, I’ll be carrying on as normal and at the end of the week I’ll be doing my baseline measurement to see what waste I’m producing in my household on a normal week, before we put in to place some of the useful provided tools to aid in this months challenge!! I’m actually off for a few days from Monday morning on my holidays to France, so I’ll be getting my folks back at my home to save their avoidable food waste along with logging roughly any food that I waste abroad Monday to Thursday, all of this you can keep track of on my instagram stories! I’ve always been a lunch prepper, I’ve been using food recycling at home for some time and i consciously make the efforts to minimize a single use plastics in my life but even as a conscious person I know the results will alarm me when so many things on offer to us have not undergone the same thoughtful and sustainable journey we would want in an ideal world. After this week is done and we measure what’s ‘normal’ for me and my household, then we’ll start the reduction measurements from week 2! Food waste and the volume of single use plastics used world wide is a huge issue and I invite you this month to join the challenge and become more #FoodSavvy with me, from Norfolk, Suffolk and beyond!

Top Tips for Travelling from Gatwick Airport- South Terminal

Going to the airport can feel like a real chore sometimes, get up at an ungodly hour, sit in the car for ages and then spend a few hours in a crowded airport feeling restless to reach your destination! I hear you! That’s how I usually feel too but this time round I made sure that was not the case and my unwinding and relaxing started the second we arrived on the airport tarmac and I want to share my top tips with you guys too!

Before your trip download yourself the Gatwick airport app, it’s free to download and has so many handy features from where to eat and shop, live flight updates and reminders like on the day when its time to head to the gate so you don’t have to keep checking the boards, it has exclusive offers to take advantage of in and before the airport and links to book other airport services too!

I’m a bit of an obsessive planner as I hate stress and things not going right so I’m always one for being super organized when going away. I booked my parking way in advance and even got a discount code too. There’s often codes in the Gatwick app for parking discounts, allowing you to get the best parking for the best price! Of course we went for valet parking so all you have to do is drive in, drop off your car and jobs a good ‘un! It literally could not have been any more simple! Leaving the car for valet parking for 8 days and an add on of premium security only cost £62 with our discount code which I think was amazing value, so, top tip one- book in advance and look for discounts before booking anything- do your research! Ease and luxury does not need to break the bank when you’ve already shelled out for a holiday and if you are like me will be watching the pennies!

As I previously mentioned we added premium security as an add on in advance, for £5 per person we do this every time we travel anywhere, you can book this beforehand or do it on the day at the airport though if you just are not sure, you get more private and separate fast track lanes with little to no queue, it is much more swift and slick than normal security! An absolute must for the impatient and easily restless! There is also the option to do this for fast track passport control on the way home too so you can make an efficient airport experience go full circle. This too can be booked on the app and often has an offer active!

So once you’re through security what’s next? For some people its grabbing those Duty Free bargains, this airport has some lovely shops and shopping options with all the usual airport classics, Boots, Dune, Superdry and even a mini Harrods, but more me it’s getting a bite to eat and something to drink! There’s some kind of time/space continuum in the airport when you feel like you have no boundaries and anything goes regardless of time, all those travelers from over the world, it’s deffo 5 o’clock on someones watch! 6am, glass of wine? Totally acceptable.

You have your choice of eateries and watering holes here in the South Terminal, I had to narrow it down to a top 3 out of Nandos (they do a brekkie in the Airport alternate universe and it sounds awesome), Caviar House and Prunier (oysters and champagne are always a good idea) but I opted for pic number 1 – Grain Store. They have a really big and varied breakfast menu with so many options which spoke to my nutritionally conscious, gym bunny soul that I’m leaving on British soil so we decided to give it a go! NB- For all those ‘Spoons fans, the Wetherspoons app for table service works in the airport too so no queuing!

The service was amazing and the decor is lovely! It doesn’t feel like you’re in an airport with the rustic decor and low lighting! Add 2 Bloody Mary’s to the mix and we were feeling positively relaxed! (Just to add this was 44 minutes after pulling in to the car park! That’s how speedy a morning it was)

To eat I went for mushrooms on toast with poached eggs and J had the full english with added chorizo, the food came out really, really fast and was nicely presented and very tasty! I would recommend for a great spot to eat!

With all of our express services in tow and a 3 hour check in requirement we had quite a lot of time to kill so it was my good girlfriend to find my travel buddy and trusty chauffeur a good spot to rest his eyes so I went a did a little exploring or the airport lounges. I’d not used them before as I’m not usually traveling long haul but there are several different lounge options available for a charge and they a like a little piece of cosmopolitan luxury behind the scenes of the airport hustle and bustle. We looked at the No1 lounge and Clubrooms which has a couple of different options of £40 and £50 (less in advance online) and you get drinks, a beautiful setting, food and more, as we had already eaten this seemed like a waste on this occasion but the decor was extremely tasteful like boutique hotel bar and the Clubrooms brunch sounded lovely so this will be on our to do list for next time. Check out more info here

Instead we went to the My Lounge which was in a different area and had a little of a more relaxed vibe, with its scans-hygge style, it was cheaper which mades sense as we were using mainly for relaxing as we had full tummies and had a big empty squishy sofa with Jamie’s name on it. This one was £30 and you get to help yourself to a lovely breakfast buffet and bar, full equipped with the necessaries for Bloody Marys and Aperol Spritz’ in addition to all the classics from wine by the glass, draught beer and premium spirits to serve yourself with. I settled in with a cocktail and browsed the complimentary copy of Grazia and waited for my Gatwick app to tell me when it’s time to head to the gate!

Overall this was the most stress free airport experience I have ever had, easy parking, amazingly efficient service from the baggage check in with BA, speedy and security with a smile, a delicious meal, a morning washed in vodka and finished in the luxury of a premium lounge. If you have a holiday booked and you are traveling from Gatwick I hope some of these top tips help make you special experience start earlier and even more memorable.

Thanks for reading, safe travels and happy holidays, H x

My bedroom makeover <3

I am absolutely buzzing to redecorate my bedroom and I’m loving the rose gold and blush decor with cool whites and grey! Below is some inspiration rooms from pintrest and a selection of things that I want to buy from Ikea (images 3, 7 11), Maison Du Monde (images 1,5,9,10,12,15,18)  and Dunelm Mill (images 14 and 17)  There is gonna be some serious flat pack assembly and bill credit card bills going on in my house!!!

Has anyone got any ideas that would look great? Or wanna share a room you love?

Love Holly xx