When the BRIT Awards came to Manchester for the first time, Warner Music and Hennessy turned The Cut & Craft into a surreal late-night playground of lasers, DJs and inflatable poodles.
Now a small part of that night has been bottled and put back on the menu.
Throughout March, The Cut & Craft is running a special “Drink Like the Brits” menu, giving Mancunians the chance to order the exact cocktails and canapés served to the music industry’s guestlist when the afterparty rolled through town.
And unlike most industry events where the food disappears as quickly as it arrives, this time you can actually sit down and try it properly.
The most direct link to the night itself comes in the form of the canapé trio, which The Cut & Craft is offering at three for £10. Think a Bury black pudding mac and cheese bite with shaved horseradish and mustard aioli, a Lancashire hotpot croquette with lamb and gravy aioli, and pea and asparagus arancini with beetroot aioli – a line-up that leans heavily into Northern comfort food, albeit dressed for a black-tie music party.
The drinks menu, unsurprisingly, is where things get more theatrical.
Hennessy was the headline pour at the afterparty, and the cocktails here stick closely to what guests were drinking that night. The XO Espresso Martini swaps vodka for Hennessy XO alongside Kahlúa, vanilla and espresso – a richer, slightly more decadent version of the usual late-night pick-me-up.
Then there’s Breakfast at Hennessy’s – a blend of Hennessy VS, apricot brandy, Sauternes dessert wine, Earl Grey and lemon that leans aromatic, citrusy and quietly decadent.
For anyone wanting the full VIP treatment, the headline serve is the Hennessy Paradis Classic Champagne Cocktail, which is finished tableside with Moët & Chandon 2015 Grand Vintage and served alongside a small bottle of champagne.
The menu isn’t limited to drinks and bites either. A few larger dishes have made their way in as well, including a teriyaki steak skewer starter, a salmon fillet with crab and prawn ravioli in lobster sauce, and a 60-day dry-aged tomahawk steak designed for sharing.
Of course, the real party itself was a bit more chaotic than a calm dinner service. The Cut & Craft was transformed for the Warner Music and Hennessy afterparty with giant poodle installations, club lighting and a basement dancefloor that looked like it had been teleported out of 1990.
On the decks were DJs including Kim Turnbull and Groove Armada, while guests drifting through the space included Dua Lipa, Rosé, AJ Odudu and Munya Chawawa. Upstairs, trays of canapés and cognac cocktails circulated between conversations. Downstairs, the music got louder and the night stretched further than anyone had originally planned.
The “Drink Like the Brits” menu obviously can’t recreate all of that, and you’re unlikely to bump into a Gallagher sibling on your way to the loos.
But the cocktails are the same. The bites are the same. And for a month at least, the closest thing Manchester has to the BRITs guestlist is simply booking a table and ordering from the menu.
Which, when you think about it, is a lot easier than getting on the actual guestlist.
