Today I was back for more cocktail talks and had a great day of education.

Although I love cocktails I am just as, if not more, interested in the science and theory behind the making of them, the base alcohols and the work involved in running a bar. These trade talks are perfect for me as they cover all of these areas and I get to try drinks and components which I wouldn't normally all whilst listening to the people who actually invented them etc - perfect.

The first talk I went to today was put on by Bombay Sapphire and featured the fascinating Dr George Dodd.

As we entered the room we saw each seat had been given 8 covered glass of liquid along with a box containing 24 different vials of liquid. This was only a small clue of what was to come over the next hour.

Dr Dodd was full of facts and stories including the one about ‘Smelly Kelly’, an Irish professional smeller. The story goes that The New York subway waas plagued by an unpleasant smell and Kelly was invited to help identify it. After some sniffing, kelly announced the source of the smell was elephants. This was of course met with disbelief. So down Kelly went again. This time he proclaimed 'They're Indian elephants'. Once again disbelief. But the story goes that after investigation it was discovered that six weeks previously a travelling cirucs, with Indian elephants, had been in town and there had been lots of rain. The rain water had washed the elephants skin and over time the rainwater had pentrated the underground and caused the smell.

As you can imagine hearing Dr Dodd talk for an hour was no way near enough!

As the talk went on we opened some of the vials and learnt to smell them using our brains, and with eyes closed if it helped. As we identified the smells we began to taste different gins to see if we could tell the difference between those which had been vapour infused or used steeped infusions and then see what different botanicals different brands of gins used. I was pretty hopeless at identifying different components but I hope a bit more experimenting and practice with the kit will help with that.  If you want to purchase your own kit (they also do wine and whisky ones) then visit here.

The next talk was by the Worship St Whistling Shop about their cocktail emporium. This is a multi-sensory drinking experience with the drink, food, smells, sights and sounds all taken into consideration over the 2 hour plus event. They are currently running events on 'The History of Rum' and having heard them talk, and seen some of the delights which occur during the event, I'm very tempted to save my pennies and go.

The day finished with trying an alcoholic ice lolly from Icely Done. I tried coconut and was pleasantly surprised that it actually tasted of real coconut and not artifical coconut flavouring etc. I will have to keep my eye out for these in the future.

One of my higlights of today was being introduced to the idea of 'accord'. This is a perfumery term which means the combination of components harmoniously which end up creating something greater than the sum of the components. In perfumery this is used to mean a cobination of smells which work together to create a different smell. This is not like balance, which would be just combining components harmoniously but you would still be able to identify the individual components. Accord to me is that something extra- you know what it is when you see it. This blog post sums it up perfectly.

Now I know the term I realise that this is what I often strive for when beading. Rather than making a jumble of 1,00 black beads plus 400 red beads etc I am creating something new through those components often resulting in the components no longer being identifiable. I know when a piece I have created 'works' when non-beaders say 'Oh, I didn't realise it was made of beads'. To me this shows they're not looking at it through the eyes of 'you used how many beads?', 'it's just made of glass beads' or 'it took how long?' but rather viewing it as a piece of jewellery in its own right. It has become more than the sum of its multiple, little parts.

On that note, I am pleased today to be finally able to let the cat out of the bag and tell you that I am delighted to be one of Beadwork Magazine's 'Designers of the year' for 2012. I am in great company as the others this year are Diane Fitzgerald, Leslie Frazier and the sister duo Sue Jackson and Wendy Hubrick. Keep an eye out for my six projects which will appear and I hope you enjoy them.