Ten Mill Lane Cocktails

Hey All

Last week L and I headed down to Jacobs Market to try out some of the new cocktails Ten Mill Lane are launching. They're bringing out a new menu full of tasty cocktails which will be on offer mid week.

Ten Mill Lane is based on Mill Lane in the centre of Cardiff and is a great cocktail bar. L and I will be heading there for her birthday at the end of the month. We love a good mid week cocktail session (as you may know if you've followed our blog from the beginning and we were sharing our cocktail hour series found here)

The event was held in Jacobs Antique and Ten Mill Lane had gone all out decorating it to showcase there new menu. The inspiration for the new menu comes from artwork and each cocktail is related to the piece of art that inspired. 

Of course we found mirrors to take selfies in!

Onto the cocktails, as mentioned above they are all inspired by artwork which I love and the cocktails themselves are a work of art. I love the thought that has gone into the presentation of them all.

Self Portrait - Frida Kahlo

Tequila isn't a drink I'd pick and I don't tend to pick it even in cocktails but I was won over with this. The Tequila was a love of Frida Kahlo which is why it was picked as the base of this art inspired cocktail. The mix of it with mango add a sweetness and then citrus and peppercorn rebalance this out. Not once I'd pick of the menu without trying but it was delicious and one I'd order again.

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande - George Seurat

L and I couldn't wait to try this. Straight away this is one we'd have chosen off the menu based on ingredients. Sweet vermouth, raspberry and wormwood vodka. The combination of these is delicious and we could imagine drinking these on a chilled out sunny Sunday!

Bleeding Medals - Gilbert and George

We missed this one as it came round for tasting but our love of tea means this will be the first one we order off the menu when we go back. I love the presentation of this, not only a teacup but tea too. This inspiration came that tea is seen iconically as an English tradition so the blend of gin tea bitters and earthy liqueur are said to be reminiscent of a black tea with lemon juice and sugar to balance out the flavour and a splash of milk! I can't wait to try this!

The Treachery of Image - Rene Magritte

The presentation of this cocktail is amazing. Inspired by the art work it's based on it gets delivered to the table being smoked and served in a glass pipe! As expected it's base is a oaky whiskey but balanced out with a sweet vermouth. Also adding cloves, cinnamon and vanilla for flavour and warmth. A hint of absinthe brings the warm feeling to recreate the pipe! This sounds like a winning combination to me. I'm a big whisky fan.



Blue Dress - Leonid Afremov

This is one of my favourite presentations. The sugared glass is a great touch and the delicate flower on top. This is also tastes as good as it looks with a mix of gin, green tea and elderflower cordial this is an easy drinker!



Red Poppies and Daisies - Vincent Van Gogh

Another great presentation, with cocktails I'm perfectly ok with not drinking out of a glass if it looks pretty and this certainly does. This contains rum (probably L's favourite liquor!) brandy and mango juice which helps to bring out the flavours of both liquors to produce a sweet cocktail to represent the flowers. A hint of absinthe represents the foliage of the art work.



I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold Cocktail - Charles Demuth

This is a cocktail that's right up my street, whisky, orange liqueur, and maple syrup with honey and bitters. Simple but works well and gives great flavours!

Campbell's Soup Can - Andy Warhol

This is one I'd never have picked to try. Of course served in a can it's a new take on a bloody mary. Even served with a dash of parma ham if you're not vegetarian and chilli candy floss. Like a bloody mary it contains tomato juice but included is a mango vodka to give it a new flavour twist. This isn't something I'd order again but I didn't dislike it!

Summer - Alphonse Mucha

The last cocktail I've got to share but there are a few more. This was an unexpected winner for L and I. It combines wine and gin (that sounds dangerous straight away!!) with elderflower. This really works. The wine and elderflower give a sweetness to this gin cocktail but still keep it light!

So that's some of the new menu from Ten Mill Lane. L and I were totally won over by these new cocktails and can't wait to try the rest when we celebrate her birthday! It's great to try new cocktails that aren't a classic. If you'd seen our 101 things in 1001 days when we did those one of my things was to try 10 new cocktails. If only we were still in those 1001 days I've have covered them!

Are you a cocktail fan? Have you been to Ten Mill Lane?

Love M 

xxx

Travel: Cosy Under Canvas Review

Hey All

I've been meaning to write this for a while as C and I absolutely loved our glamping experience and I knew I had to share it. We had decided in late Sept/ early Oct we'd go away. We'd originally planned to go somewhere abroad but dates weren't working out so we decided to look for places to stay in Geodomes as friends of ours had stayed in some in Scotland and loved it. C and I have camped quite a few times since we've been together and loved it but this was a different holiday for us and we wanted a little bit more luxury. After googling we found Cosy under Canvas and we were instantly sold. We went towards the end of the Season and the Holly Dome was the last one available to book.

Cosy under Canvas is located near to Hay-On-Wye, and is a totally off grid site. We loved this as when you arrive you lose phone signal. A short walk up to the main house there is wifi you can use if you need to contact someone but we loved being totally switched off. There are gas hobs in the kitchen area, solar powered lights, composting toilets and wood-fired showers, how amazing is that!! There are 7 domes across the site which can sleep between 4-6 people. I love that it's been kept so small as you don't feel cramped in and have some privacy. Each Dome also comes with a wood fired hot tub and it's own toilet.

On arrival we were instantly wowed, nestled in between woodlands were these amazing domes. They are impressively spacious and looked great. No domes point towards each other as the front is see through so even though it's open you feel like you have privacy. We stayed in the Holly Dome which can sleep up to six people.

How amazing is it inside. Each dome comes with a bed. futons, bean bags, sheep skin rugs, torches, candles and holders and more. Ours even had a little hammock seat. We loved how cosy it was. It was cold as we went so late in the year but the wood burner inside heated it up and little touches like hot water bottles meant it was comfortable at night. We loved the homely feel to it!

We felt so chilled out here it was amazing. Above is the kitchen with a large dining table. There is also a chalk board with what's going on in the local area. Each dome also has a storage and freezer box in the kitchen to store food in. We ended up accidentally ordering a hello fresh box (you can see my review on them here) and it ended up being great as we had everything we needed to make tasty meals easily. The wooden seating is on the decking outside the dome as there are fire pits around the dome which can be used to cook on with tripods and pots also provided. We loved how secluded it all was and getting back to nature but chopping wood for fires and to cook! 

The hot tub was something we loved. On a cold day nothing beats sitting in a lovely warm hot tub. We did have a few issues getting ours lit but Emma came down to help us and got it sorted. We loved how welcoming they were and helpful. Follow the instructions as these do heat up and stay warm. We were concerned it would cool down so left it going too long and it ended up staying way to hot one evening. We also shoved extra logs on it before bed so we could use it in the mornings!

If you need anymore convicing here is the amazing sky views from Cosy Under Canvas!! It's so peaceful at night and we were treated to amazing clear skies.

We definitely want to go back. Have you considered glamping? For more info and some current discount codes check out cosyundercanvas.co.uk.

Love M

xxx

Book Review: Harry Potter Illustrated Book

Hello there! 

I don't know about you but me and M are both super Harry Potter fans, we absolutely love it and can't get enough. We love the books, the films, and have been known to attend Harry Potter parties...nerds!

I also love books in general, and bookshelves and I need to do everything I can to fill mine with the prettiest books in existence. You have probably seen the most recent adaptation to come out but I couldn't resist sharing as it is just so beautiful.

Meet the illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: 

Don't panic, I won't be showing you all the pages as I would hate to ruin the surprise of how beautiful they are! But I have taken a few snaps to make you understand how perfect it is and how you need it in your collection!

I thought this would be another book with a few images in it, beautiful images but just a couple here and there.
I have to say I was extremely impressed that every page has either a scene, a character or just general doodles around the text to bring it to life.



Each of the chapters has a really detailed doodle to introduce them and it just makes me want to draw my own and colour it all in!

Even if you are not as much of a fan as we are, you cannot deny that the book is gorgeous and is a great gift for children and adults.

I cannot wait for the next book to come out and all the rest so that I can complete this collection too!

The RRP of the book is £30 but I believe that you can buy this from Amazon for £14 - which let's face it is a wonderful bargain.

What do you think of Harry Potter? Do you love books like me?

It's my absolute dream to have a display of books that makes it onto Pinterest!

L xxx

Travel: New Years Even in Copenhagen and Tivoli Gardens

Hey All

So this is my last post on Copenhagen, you can find where we stayed, what we ate and what we did too. When we arrived we didn't really have plans for NYE and asked for suggestions at the hotel reception. They had tickets for sale for Tivoli and as we had planned to go at some point we decided to spend NYE there. It was around £10 for entry into the gardens which seemed pretty reasonable.

Tivoli Gardens are the second oldest operating amusement park. I didn't really know what to expect going in, was it going to be more Disney or Alton Towers but I was wrong. I'd heard it was beautiful here but it really did feel magical (how over dramatic do I sound!).

So this is the entrance to Tivoli Gardens. It looks so pretty with the fairy lights and Christmas trees after. There was even a sprinkling of fake snow over the trees! Everything was decorated with fairy lights and there were cute little shops making it feel like a Christmas Market and lots of Gluhwein being sold. One thing you notice straight away is how clean it is too which we realised was due to a clever concept. All drinks were served in reusable plastic glasses in which there were recycling points around. When recycled the machine gave you around 50p back so even if they were discarded someone else would return them for the money!

After visiting a supermarket the night before we ended up all wearing novelty hats for the evening too!

There was also a large selection of restuarants including a pirate ship!!! But unfortunately they were all fully booked so if you're spending NYE there book in advance. There were food stalls to eat from around though and we had some amazing fish and chips!

If you're going to go on rides I'd fully recommend the wrist band option. It's around £20 and offers unlimited rides. We opted for single tickets thinking we wouldn't go on many rides but didn't realise some rides required more than 1 ticket so we ended up spending what a wrist band would cost anyway. They have a large selection of rides including full roller costers and gorgeous traditional Carousals like the one above!

At 10pm there was an amazing firework display. I believe Tivoli has fireworks all over Christmas period. These were amazing. They did the display at 10pm so families could leave if they wanted to. After the fireworks part of the park did close but the smaller rides stayed open and we wondered around till midnight, when we grabbed some drinks. At midnight fireworks seemed to go off from all around so we had so many to look at!

Tivoli Gardens really felt like a magical place and we all loved it there! If you're visiting Copenhagen it's definitely worth a visit even if it's just to stroll around.

Love M

xxx