Eat Your Drink: Edible alcohol shop opens in Carnaby Street
Two friends are opening an “edible alcohol” shop in Carnaby Street selling cocktail-flavoured candy floss, dip dabs and boozy fruit pastilles.
Melanie Goldsmith and Emile Bernard have created a “magical, glittery labyrinth” with the help of a theatre designer where customers can “experience” alcohol by consuming it in unusual ways.
The Eat Your Drink shop, which they claim is a world first, is selling inventions tried out at dating nights as well as sweets that are now stocked by Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Selfridges.
Ms Goldsmith, 26, who worked in PR and former chef Mr Bernard, 26, run Smith & Sinclair and have found a temporary home on the ground floor of Benefit cosmetics shop.
‘By the candy floss I was light-headed’
The alcoholic sweets at Eat Your Drink by Smith & Sinclair are as far from Christmas chocolate liqueurs as you can get. The gin jelly sweet — looking like a giant fruit pastille — was pure squidgy sweetness at first, then tasted like a Parma violet before the slight warmth of the alcohol hit the back of my throat. Each sweet equals half a shot but they are so moreish.
Next up was the dip dab. I coated the pineapple lolly with coconut sherbet, forgetting that this was adding to the number of units I was clocking up. The alcohol was almost undetectable among the tropical flavours. By the time I got to the candy floss I had lost track. The urge to keep picking at the fluffy blue sugar, coupled with being a bit light-headed by this point, meant I got through almost half a jar.
Ms Goldsmith, from East Finchley, said: “Different scents will be pumped into different areas. Samples will be given out that people can experience the sweets in every way — from sucking on them to licking them, to breathing them to chewing on them,” she added.
The shop will stock products not available at their online store including candy floss jars to pour vodka into. Ms Goldsmith said: “The vodka melts the candy floss, flavouring the alcohol and revealing edible alcoholic jewels.”
The jars come in two flavours; black cherry and hibiscus or beetroot and bubblegum. Alcoholic dip dabs in pina colada or mojito flavours will also be on sale as well as boxes of gin, rum, and whisky-flavoured fruit pastilles. Despite starting their business only a year and a half ago the friends said they are expecting a turnover of £150,000 during the Christmas period, including sales from their website.
Ms Goldsmith is convinced the success of the sweets is down to the taste. She said: “You get every other flavour first before the ethanol. The pastilles are coated in the flavour so you get a touch of grenadine or grapefruit but each sweet is 80 per cent alcohol and contains 0.4 units.”
The shop will be open at 10 Carnaby Street from November 18 until Christmas Eve. Smith & Sinclair’s alcoholic pastilles are available online at smithandsinclair.co.uk.
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