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The good folks at Keystone Hospitality behind The Loft, The Winery, Kit Kaboodle and others fine establishments have also joined in on the World Cocktail Week action. Their line-up, which kicks off tonight, includes From Shakespeare to Shandies' at the Australian Heritage Hotel, hosted by comedian Sean Baxter, and extends through to Cocktails of the Jazz Era' at The Loft.

The post-modern tavern's ye olde' feel is accentuated by its housemade cider and mead. The cider is used primarily in cocktails, while the mead is fermented from organic honey and mellowed in wooden casks, then served in medieval-style wooden flagons with a squeeze of lime over hand-chipped ice. It is, quite simply, delicious, and according to Collins has an intoxicating effect that lies somewhere between absinthe's lucidity and tequila's rambunctiousness. Other picks from the cocktail list include the Perfect G T', made with a herbal, housemade tonic and fresh cucumber; and the UK Martini', a cleansing combination of gin, elderflower, cucumber and apple juice with a side of cider sorbet.

Forget Fashion Week World Cocktail Week is a celebration that you can really raise a glass to. Starting today and stretching until Sunday, May 15th, the festivities mark the week that the word cocktail' was first defined in print in 1806 a good enough reason for cocktailians the world over to whip out jigger, beaker and flask to mix potent potables for enthusiastic punters.