Inspired by three English components: an English street photographer, an English glassware designer, and the base wine drawn from the oval foudre of an exclusive English sparkling wine estate, the Eclipse cocktail is perhaps the greatest work to date of illustrious Director of Mixology, Ago Perrone of Mayfair’s Connaught Bar – ranked current World’s Best Bar and Best Bar in Europe according to 50 Best.
Taking its cues from the high contrast, intensely detailed ‘Metropolis’ series of London captured by photographer, Alan Schaller using his Leica M Monochrom camera, designer, Richard Brendon created a glossy glass featuring a black core with a ceramic like white outside. Within the glass, Perrone’s cocktail starred the base wine collected from his visit to the Henley based sustainable members’ vineyard and winery, Hundred Hills alongside Perrone’s Connaught Bar gin which is made at the five-star hotel’s own micro distillery, and a Torino milk punch featuring clarified cocoa bean and milk, surrounding a large square ice cube. The result is an enigmatic, silky drink, the perhaps surprising colour of which the drinker is unaware of given the completely disguising aspect of Brendon’s wafer-fine cocktail glass.
The Eclipse, which is now available at The Connaught Bar is part of a wider menu called ‘Impressions’ which launches in October.
Of the glass, Brendon, who previously worked on a collaboration with Jancis Robinson OBE, told Drinks Business – ‘I usually look at heritage – how things used to be made – and this was a fun challenge. I got to mess around with paint and spray guns. It’s interesting how black and white feels – the glass might look like China but it’s actually crystal…’
