On the Thursday of London Cocktail Week we headed back to our new bar discovery, the Beachcomber in Bayswater, for a ti punch tiki party – celebrating agricole rum’s and the French Caribbean’s famous cocktail serve.

The event was hosted by Philippe and Audrey from Rhum Clément and kicked off, naturally, with a ti punch – Clément blanc, muddled with lime and sugar.

Tiki Chris, celebrating his tenth year of blogging, was also present, having concocted his ‘twisted’ ti punch to feature as the bar’s London Cocktail Week special. The recipe’s here and is a cross between a ti punch (white rhum, lime and sugar) and a pina colada (coconut rhum agricole, and pineapple puree), with a dash of absinthe for extra fun.

Tasting this personalisation was the precursor to the night’s main activity. Each guest was to invent their own version of a ti punch, using the large selection of ingredients laid out by the bar staff: the Clément range of white, amber and shrubb rhums, fruit and herbal syrups, limes, sugars and ice.

We all had a tick sheet to select our combinations, and an opportunity to taste some of the more unfamiliar ingredients (sorrel syrup for example), before handing over our recipes to bar manager Adam to make.

We were then judged on the names we’d come up with and of course, taste, by Philippe, Audrey, Tiki Chris and Ash and Adam from Beachcomber. A well-qualified audience.

My recipe for ‘Shrubb Me All Over’

1 lime wedge
1 tsp sugar
40cl Clément Shrubb
10cl Clément blanc
1tsp homemade tea syrup

Chris’ recipe for ‘Bougécoco’

30ml Clément blanc
20ml Clément coco
1 lime wedge
Dash grenadine
Mine was perhaps still too raw as the tea syrup was very mild-flavoured.  On the other hand, Chris’s Bougécoco was much better balanced and got him second place.

Despite neither of us winning, we had a great night, topped off with everyone receiving a Clément gift bag with miniatures and a branded glass to add to our collection.