Sounds like a really good event up in Birmingham this September. It’s a collaborative art and music festival across a few different and interesting venues, bringing together artists from Brasil and Birmingham.
From the site:
full three days of events, with 30 acts, workshops, films, yummy Brazilian food, scrummy Lebanese, vegetarian and Jamaican scran, phone boxes full of poetry and jazz jam sandwiches
Sounds good, no?
The dust has settled on an epic weekend of art, sunshine, inanity and lots of caipirinhas down in Abelha’s home turf, Hackney Wick. Highlights of the Braziliality’s party included a giant floor piece by Abelha friend Milo Tchais, alongside the prolific Stik and Prozak (BR), as well as some incredible pieces in the exhibition at Formans (which is on until the end of August).
Featured here on Epoca Sao Paolo or there are loads of pictures on Formans site here
The Wednesday Night Drink
After a long absence, due to festivals, trade shows and the like, we are back with the Wednesday Night Drink. We’re off to West London, to drink in one of London’s truly fine bars, Montgomery Place. It’s a little bit too nice a bar to play Buckaroo in, but Hal will take on all-comers in the new Sport of Cachaça Backgammon. We will buy a few rounds for the early birds so get down as soon as you can.
The Wednesday Night Drink – Facebook event link
Wednesday 21st October – 6:30pm onwards
Montgomery Place
31 Kensington Park Road | Notting Hill | W11 2EU
Rumfest
The biggest rum exhibition for both trade and the general public. There are tons of tastings, seminars and cocktail mixing sessions and you can even buy bottles there. We’ll be around on the Sunday!
Rumfest – Link to website and tickets
24th and 25th October 12pm til 7pm
The Lawrence Hall, The Royal Horticultural Halls, Grey Coat Street, Victoria, London SW1P 1PE
Barrio North’s 2nd Birthday Weekender
Our mate Ferdie’s bar is going off all weekend too, we’ll be there on the Friday, serving caipirinhas onto the street with the now famous Abelha Beach Bar Cart thing. The NextMen are playing – I hadn’t actually heard of them until I saw them at the Sandsifter in Cornwall, and it was the best DJ set I’d heard all year.
Blowing Up the Barrio – event Friday 23rd October
Facebook page
Barrio North, 45 Essex Rd, London, N1
Nice to see some of our friends and colleagues winning stuff – notably 2 of our favourite Shoreditch stockists, Callooh Callay – Best Contemporary Design AND Best Bar Team, and Saf, shortlisted for Best Restaurant. Props to Richard, Sean, Joe, Justin and the teams.
Dave and Dom of DTwo Design also won the Ones to Watch (Design) award, and Rob Poulter who is an old mate of Hal’s from Oxford picked up Bartender of the Year. Good times!
Full results here
After a long weekend of cheap paint and the wrong size screws in the Abelha Research Lab (Ant’s Shed) the Abelha beach bar cart was born. We went to Festinho with a good crew of Matt, Andy, Ferdie, Rosie, Yael and the inimitable Mr Jeevon. After an initial setback in which the cart blew over and broke 2 of the bulbs in the disco lights, we anchored it down, rocked out hard and gave people a lot of caipirinha joy.
A huge hit at the festival were the Abelha cocktails, Caipirinha. Abelha is a 100% organic cachaca (a brazilian rum) freshly mixed at the Beach Bar these were seen all around the festival…
Festinho was excellent, great organisation, good atmosphere, and good beats. They raise a lot of money for the ABC Trust too, which is a charity supporting Brazilian Children. Thanks to the organisers, volunteers, everyone who helped out, and everyone who had a drink with us!
Image from miko-la
Festinho is a cracking smallish (less than 2000 people), Brasilian-flavoured weekender festival down in Suffolk. From their site:
An intimate, friendly festival in a magical setting, Festinho is a delicious cocktail of the best in eclectic music, sunny Brazilian vibes, a laid-back feel and shedloads of wonderful nonsense. All profits go to the ABC Trust, which helps Brazilian children and young people on the streets to transform their lives.
We’ve worked with our friends at Barrio North raising money for the ABC Trust before and it’s a privilege to work with them again and get involved with Festinho. We’re providing them with cachaca, and I’m going to build an awesome little beach-cart caipirinha bar just for the event – those of you who’ve been to Brasil will know the kind of thing I mean.
It’s going to be immense – get info and tickets here at the Festinho website or join the Festinho Facebook group. See you there!
Image from chaz_moore
We’re very excited about this. It’s a show for the bar industry which focusses showcasing quality products, rather than dancing girls and giant inflatable exhibition stands.
Our friend, and founder of the Boutique Bar Show, Andrew Scutts is putting a load of effort in, and from what we hear the line up is looking great already – check out the website at www.boutiquebarshow.com and register.
We will of course be there, and are currently thinking about what kind of exhibition stand to do. Any ideas, give us a shout!
Braziliality, curated by the lovely Alicia Bastos, is an ongoing monthly art exhibition at the 16mm Cafe in Soho, which showcases work from Brazilian artists, or work inspired by Brazil.
We were happy to sponsor their first Birthday party, as it featured work from Eduardo Zappia who joined up with the volunteer firefighters in Chapada Diamantina (where Abelha Cachaça is created), to combat the massive bushfires there last year.
All images from Braziliality
On the same day as a similar sounding event, Sunday the 29th March 2009, we will race two actual goats along a difficult, meandering course lined with cheering spectators.
It’s a charity event we’re putting on in collaboration with Magic-Ish (and Cookie and Nicky) to help raise money for Spitalfields City Farm, situated just behind Brick Lane.
Spitalfields City Farm is a charity which aims to promote, amongst other things, animal welfare and sustainable farming practices, things which are right down our alley.
So come down, browse Brick Lane market and cheer on the goats, then come for a free caipirinha at the Dragon Bar down on Shoreditch High Street.
=====Programme=====
2:00pm doors open
Donation £3 to enter. (100% of all money taken goes straight to the farm). Includes a free caipirinha.
Amusements:
** The Official Goat Race Bookie and Sweepstake
** Goatee Knitting Race
** Remote Goats in Coats on Boats which Float in Moats Game
3:30pm The Race Starts
4:00pm Prize giving ceremony
4:30pm Afterparty at the Dragon Bar
=====Dress Code=====
Strictly: Black Tie, Rowing lycra, boat club jackets and ties, or goat.
=====Date and Location=====
Sunday March 29th
Spitalfields City Farm, Buxton Street, London, E1 5AR
Click here for map
Nearest tubes: Whitechapel 5 mins, Bethnal Green 5 mins, Aldgate East 5 mins
So that’s it.
It’s going to be loads of fun – if you want to come, why not get involved with the pre-race banter on the Facebook event page here.
Our friends at Barrio North are putting a load of parties for carnival this weekend, with the last due being Tuesday the 24th. There’s £3 Abelha caipirinhas all night, free brasilian food, samba and b-boys. DJ Limão is playing a load of Rio Funk and carnival tunes and it’s also raising money for Action for Brazil’s Children.
For those of you that haven’t been, Barrio North is a latin vibe DJ bar on Essex Road (Angel tube is 5 mins), great cocktails, friendly staff, and gets dancey-busy with a good looking N1 crowd Thursday through til Saturday. They also have a goddamn caravan right in the middle of the bar, and serve a mean caipirinha (made with the finest small batch cachaça from Bahia – that’s Abelha Cachaça, for those of you who are slow to catch on!!) too.
