You do the Meth
New dates added to sell out event
NEW DATES ADDED (SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS)
It's 7pm in a car park in Digbeth. It's raining. Raining hard. A guy in a yellow boiler suit, blue gloves and a steamed up gas mask is trying to say something to me, but it's muffled. "What?" I say, leaning in.
"Mmmhmm mhm mhmm MMMM?" He replies, placing his hand on my shoulder.
I shake my head, clueless.
He pulls off his breathing equipment, wipes his brow and says "you won't tell them everything, will you?"
"No," I shout, through the downpour. "I won't tell them everything."
Welcome to the Heisenbar.
Parked next to us is a 40 foot recreational vehicle. And if you've watched television in the last 10 years you probably (sort of) know where this is heading. But there's no way in the world you can know the ins and outs. The boiler suits, the RV, the test tubes and bottles and beakers inside it, all add up to one of the greatest TV shows ever made. For three nights only you can climb aboard this mobile bar, inspired by Netflix sensation, Breaking Bad.
It's a bar with a difference and the difference we're getting at isn't that it's a driveable living quarters. On board you'll be making your own cocktails with the guidance of your 'cook'. And where in the TV show Walter and Jessie were cooking methamphetamine, you'll be downgrading several hundred levels, to cocktails. Drinks specifically created in honour of the programme. There's a lot of surprises on the way, but here's what we can tell you.
With full respect to your inevitably mercurial mixology skills, the DIY element of this experience in no way means you'll be simply throwing a double Smirnoff into a Capri Sun. Not a bit of it. The men in the boiler suits have appointed Smultronstalle's Rob Wood to craft the menu. Formerly of The Edgbaston and the man behind the drinks at Zindiya and The Wilderness, he's taken this job and ran with it. The first of his creations that you'll be replicating, entitled Welcome to New Mexico, will involve a process called nitro cavitation. You'll be forcing nitrogen into jalapenos, then you'll be stripping the chillies of their flavour and, ultimately drinking the stolen heat.
The cocktails that follow play out in a clever Breaking Bad style long arc plot. Next is a clear drink with a taste unlike anything you'd expect followed by a concoction called Blue Sky; a brilliantly bizarre and totally unexpected slurp that has hidden twists that we are under direct orders not to reveal. And you don't go up against Heisenberg. Unless, of course, you're the DEA, and we have it on good authority that they are investigating your activity while you mix. So keep an eye out.
Finally you'll craft potentially the pottiest potion of the lot, a drink called Breakfast With Walter Jr. If you want to know how one drinkable course can include coffee, cereal, eggs, bacon and OJ, then here's your moment.
Suffice to say the drinks will require food. So expect food. The garnishes, which include Pinkman's favourite snack, Funyons, won't cut it, but a portion of Albuquerque mac'n'cheese, and some chicken wings from Gus Fring's fictional but no less desirable fried chicken joint, should do the job. The Heisenbar is open on October 20, 21, 22 and due to sell out success now open Nov 17 and 18. Six drinks and two portions of food will set you back £40 a spot. Book
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