Family Cocktail Classes in the Cotswolds

This article is part of the FT Globetrotter's guide to London

Having cocktails with your pre-teens on a Saturday afternoon at a country house hotel may seem a little irresponsible. But we signed up for a family cocktail course, and we're just following the instructions. Propping up the blue ceramic curved bar at the Cowley Manor Experimental, my kids (11 and 9) indulge in old-fashioned herbal warmings made by the hotel's head bartender, Simon Ross.

Instead of spirits, use a mix of Everleaf Forest, a non-alcoholic aperitif made with saffron, vanilla and orange blossom, with some chai tea for warmth and a splash of homemade pink geranium syrup. It's a jump for kids' taste buds compared to the usual overly sweet soft drinks — and they're still a work in progress.

Meanwhile, Ross gives a French '75 a wintry twist with “mushroom fog,” infusing the air with an umami scent. Our adult beverage, which we have called “Shrooms and Sherry,” is a delicious blend of fig liqueur, Porcino Amontillado sherry, Hine, and Cognac. It's the perfect earthy aperitif before a mini foraging mission on the hotel grounds, searching for edibles in the bushes for our next preparation.

This afternoon activity takes place at the Cowley Manor Experimental Hotel on a rainy late winter afternoon. In 2022, Paris-based Experimental Group acquired the Cowley Hotel, a long-standing luxury spa hotel near Cheltenham, less than two hours by train from London.

Cocktails are the core of the group's offerings. In fact, it all started with drinks, not hotels – she opened her first cocktail bar on a side street in Paris in 2007 and a restaurant above a small shop in London's Chinatown the same year. I visited the latter shortly after it opened and it felt quiet and elegant compared to anything else in London at the time.

“Master cocktail classes are something we have done over the years, and foraging was a natural extension that allows us to share the beautiful wealth of ingredients abroad combined with our bartending expertise,” says Xavier Padovani, Partner and Director at Experimental Group. Of course, foraging has also become a trendy — even essential — experience for city dwellers hoping to connect with nature without getting too muddy. Cowley Manor Experimental isn't the only one seizing the moment, with a host of other luxury hotels across the English countryside offering similar experiences too (see below).

At Cowley, foraging is also a way to appreciate the exceptional home grounds up close. Famous for its stunning façade, magnificent Italianate landscaped gardens with playful views and a cascading waterfall cascading from the mouths of gargoyles, it is also thought to have inspired Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (the writer apparently stayed frequently at the palace).

When you're walking around in the late afternoon, it's not hard to see why. The sheer size of its mature trees – from ginkgo biloba to giant sequoias – makes one feel like a Lilliputian, even from afar. However, our eyes have been trained on the ground. Ross told us it would be difficult to spot the fungus under the carpet of leaves and moss. I thought, thank God for that – I was definitely ready to move on to something a little better. Instead, we headed to the palace's herb patch to pull sage, bay, mint, thyme and lemon balm leaves, as well as fiery-colored nasturtium flowers for garnish. We rooted ourselves in the dense undergrowth, filled our baskets with fragrant leaves, and returned home before the sky opened.

While the gardens are majestic in winter, we definitely came at the wrong time of year to eat. In the coming months, foragers can look forward to elderberry, ground elderberry, nettle, sweetwood, and blackberry—all of which can be mixed and distilled into exciting beverages.

Back at the bar, we were served a warm serving of Tom & Jerrys, an airy take on eggnog, originally created by bartender Jerry Thomas, known as the father of American mixology, whose 1862 Bar-Tender's Guide was probably the first book on US creates recipes for many of today's classic cocktails. A cup of egg yolks and vanilla sugar, mixed with fluffy egg whites, evaporated milk and nutmeg — and a good amount of Cognac and Jamaican rum for the over-18s — feels more like a knockout nightcap than a pre-dinner one. The children grabbed their things all at once, emerging with milky mustaches, while we watched more cautiously, knowing that there was a final creation waiting for us.

The experimental group branched out into hotels in 2015 with Hotel in Pigalle, in partnership with interior designer Dorothée Meilichzon, who has created a distinct visual language for most of its properties – a dose of playful, sexy Parisian cool in its commitment to curved surfaces, striking color combinations and highly tactile furnishings.

When I heard about the group’s acquisition of Cowley Manor, I wondered how this bold aesthetic would translate in the heart of the chic Cotswolds and how Cowley would fit into its impressive collection of stunning locations from Biarritz to Ibiza. I thought it was all a bit much. . . experimental. However, on approaching the honeycombed Grade II listed facade, along the crunchy gravel path, there was no sign that it had changed – except, as my daughter noticed, that a small door had been installed at the bottom of the topiary shrubbery at the front of the house. Under its new ownership, the nod to Alice runs subtly throughout, from the porcelain head of the hare used for toasting at afternoon tea to the mouse-sized door in our room's skirting board, and other delightful eye-level details for younger guests.

While the beautiful bones of this historic building have been duly respected, Melichzon has created a stunning sense of retro-futurism with custom-made furniture, furnishings and lighting that make one feel as if you are in the mansion of a gorgeous French pop star, rather than in the heart of… Land of wellies-and-walkies.

The hotel bar is the most cheerful room ever, and is an attraction for guests on a damp winter evening. It's cozy yet cool, with wood paneling and mirrors, and has a strong 1960s and 1970s feel. We were invited to venture beyond the bar deck – this was the moment the family was destined to be free. For Cocktail #3, the kids chose a combination of syrup and soda and were given a chance to mix it themselves. The other guests didn't seem particularly bothered by the sight of two diminutive mixologists on the wrong side of the bar, shaking their creations as hard as they could until their fingers started to stick to the shaker from the cold.

For our third drink, my husband and I went heavily botanical, like sage, bay leaf, and lemon verbena, with a good splash of gin and a splash of thyme-infused vermouth. The result was a surprisingly herbal ginger martini that neither of us could finish. “It might take a day or so to get a new cocktail right,” Ross reassured.

After this third powerful combination, we moved from the bar to the excellent restaurant, overseen by Chef Jackson Boxer. “Would you like a cocktail first?” Our waiter said when we sat down. “We'll just see the wine list, please,” I said weakly.

In a glance:

“In Search of a Drinkable Feast” at the Cowley Manor Demo

Rebecca Rose was a guest at the Cowley Manor Experimental

Have you ever taken a cocktail course, and if so, what were the results? Tell us in the comments below. And follow the FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter

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