1. First up, Socialandcocktail.co.uk are just as excited about new vodka flavours as we are. While we gathered the best flavoured vodkas on the market having named them the official drink of our decade, their resident Cocktail Geek  found the strangest. Our favourite? Skorrpio Vodka, which includes a captive bred scorpion inside the bottle. Don’t worry, they take the venom out beforehand and it makes the vodka “smooth and quite sweet, with a peculiar smell reminiscent of wet rodent bedding”.

2. Listen to lady beer sommelier Sophie Atherton from ‘A Female View’ on BBC Radio Devon on the Bill Buckley Show as part of his Foodie Friday. Atherton tries and tests beers live on air, and we particularly liked the sound of Wild Beer Co and Fyne Ales ‘Cool as a Cucumber’. It has a low ABV of 2.9%, and sounds like it would go down very well on a hot summer afternoon. You can catch up on Friday’s show here.

3. In light of World Gin Day last Saturday the Gin geniuses over at the Gin Monkey have shared their secret recipe on how to make Gin at home. They say that there is no distillation required and that it isn’t as hard as you think it would be. That’s one way to lighten your weekly Hendrick’s bar tab. Don’t forget to add cucumber to the shopping list.

4. Beer is making some frothy headway in the booze news recently, and over at Hot Rum Cow they have compiled a list of beautiful beer bottles by design. Check out ‘Ninkasi’ by the Wild Beer co., which is sealed with a distinctive white wax.

Featured image credit: creative commons