As the name would suggest, a drink festival is a celebration of drink.  While this often means alcoholic drinks, there is sometimes exceptions to the rule such as the London Coffee Festival.  In a similar way to food festivals, and indeed other types of festivals, drinks festivals are often held in large parks, town squares, halls or exhibition centres.  The aim is for people to come together and enjoy a variety of different drinks together.

What Can You Expect?

There are many activities at drinks festivals with drinks being the focus of all the attention.  This might include some kind of tasting workshop, where you can try your hand at tasting various types of a particular drink and trying to describe the  smell and flavour etc.  If it is a drinks festival with a specific theme like the London Gin Festival, there may be other drinks options but you should expect to see a lot of gin on offer.  In other words, don't attend a gin festival if you don't like gin.

In a similar way to food festivals with their cookery demos, drinks festivals often have drinks-orientated demonstrations.  These can be anything from mixology displays where cocktail experts show their skills offering valuable tips for home recipes and techniques, to cookery demonstrations using different types of drink.  For instance a chef may demonstrate a number of different ways you can cook using wine or beer.

As with any festival, drinks festivals will also have stalls showcasing locally brewed and produced drinks.  If its a beer festival you may find that there are some intriguing flavours, particularly with the rise in craft beers.