Food & Drink

Manchester man creates award-winning rum business rooted in 30 years of Caribbean discovery

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson - 6th April 2022

A local man has launched premium spirits brand, House of Rum, after spending the last three decades immersed in Caribbean culture.

David Howarth’s time spent travelling and working around the Caribbean has been used to hone a collection of unique, limited-edition rums inspired by the regional blends found across the islands.

David says he first fell in love with the region when he was just 22 years old, when a trip to Antigua prompted him to change his career and move across the world.

The Manchester-born businessman was ‘forever moved’ by his first island experience, which he spent ‘enjoying a rum punch, listening to steel drums being played to the backdrop of Shirley Heights’.

House of Rum’s range of unique, limited-edition rums. Credit: Supplied

He’s spent the last three decades soaking up the islands’ culture and discovering the differences in rum blends, which are influenced by the land surrounding each distillery – whether that’s the shores of Jamaica or the coastal hillsides of Barbados.

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House of Rum was created to ‘celebrate these undiscovered, rare regional intricacies, provide a platform for them, through the creation of sought after, specially selected aged and blended rums’.

All of the rums in the collection are small-batch releases, with the Diablo series presented in luxurious Wibalin Buckram Black window boxes.

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House of Rum’s Spiced Millionaire cocktail. Credit: Supplied

Using some of the oldest distilleries in the Caribbean, the range includes the award-winning Diablo Aged White Rum (filtered through charcoal, with notes of liquorice, peppermint and banana) at £69 per 70cl bottle.

House of Rum also boasts the Diablo Spiced Rum (with flavours of golden syrup, ginger, cloves and nutmeg) and the Diablo Aged Rum (featuring notes of red fruits and a touch of burnt sugar).

Its most premium product is its XO Reserve Single Cask, an incredibly rare rum matured for 11 years before being shipped to the UK.

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It’s distilled from molasses in a continuous column and there are only 140 bottles in existence, priced at £750 per bottle.

  • Hemmingway Daiquiri
  • Black Cherry Cobbler
House of Rum cocktails – recipes below. Credit: Supplied

The XO Reserve, which won a Silver Award at the Rum and Cachaca Masters 2022 and the IWSC 2022, is served in a bottle embellished with a die-cast metal badge, and sold alongside two House of Rum and Cumbria Crystal hand-blown tumblers.

House of Rum has created some delicious cocktail recipes to complement its unique premium rum range.

There’s the Hemingway Daiquiri (40ml Diablo Aged White Rum, 15ml Maraschino liqueur, 25ml grapefruit juice, 15ml lime juice, shaken and double-strained into a coupe glass with a grapefruit twist) and the Black Cherry Cobbler (35ml Diablo Aged Rum, 20ml Amontillado Sherry, 20ml Black cherry syrup, 20ml lemon juice, served in a wine goblet with a lime wedge and cherry).

Spiced rum fans will also love the Spiced Millionaire, which sees 40ml Diablo Spiced Rum, 15ml Cointreau, 2.5ml Absinthe, 10ml pomegranate syrup and 20ml lime juice served in a rocks glass with lemon zest and a cherry.

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You can find out more and browse the House of Rum collection at www.house-of-rum.com.

Featured image: Supplied

Food & Drink

This Manchester restaurant is serving an all-you-can-eat curry buffet throughout Ramadan

Georgina Pellant Georgina Pellant

A restaurant in Manchester is serving up a bottomless curry buffet throughout Ramadan and it sounds absolutely epic.

From today, 23 March, Zouk Tea Bar & Grill on Oxford Road is bringing back its brilliant all-you-can-eat Indian buffet – serving up unlimited quantities of customer favourites including the likes of chicken sindhi biryani, dall makhani and tarka dall curries alongside assorted naan breads, roti, and basmati rice.

Served throughout the month of Ramadan, there are an impressive amount of dishes on offer – and all for the price of £25pp for adults or £12.50 per child (under 12), with under 5’s eating free.

image: Zouk
image: Zouk

Add to the list a huge quantity of chicken tikka and seekh kebabs, a whole stuffed lamb raan, chicken 65, vegetable samosas, and more curries of lamb and potatoes, spinach and chicken, and it’s easy to see why Zouk’s bottomless buffet continues to be such a hit year-on-year.

It doesn’t stop there, either. There is a mouthwatering selection of desserts included in the buffet too, with choices like mango and raspberry Mumbai mess, chocolate brownies and fresh fruit alongside traditional favourite gulab jamon.

Each day the menu will vary slightly but it will always include a wide selection of salads, starters,
curries, chutneys, accompaniments, desserts, and roasted lamb.

This year Zouk has created two sittings for the halal buffet, following requests from customers to keep it
running for longer each evening. There will be one sitting at Iftar (sunset) each day and a second
sitting an hour later.

Booking is advised and when customers go onto Zouk’s website they can book at Iftar or later in the evening for the additional buffet sitting on their chosen date.

Image: Zouk

Customers are advised to note that the timings do change slightly throughout the month of Ramadan, due to the variation in BST and the arrival of lighter evenings.

Owner Tayub Amjad said: “Everyone is welcome to join us at this special time and we have created a secondsitting of the buffet an hour after Iftar.

Tayub added: “By offering two sittings, we can accommodate families who wish to pray together at
home before coming out to eat and also customers who may not be fasting or participating in
Ramadan personally but who wish to experience the fabulous buffet with friends and family and
learn more about Ramadan.

Read more: Manchester pasta restaurant The Sparrows has just won a prestigious new Michelin award

“All diners joining us will be helping us to support the homeless in Manchester, as we will make a donation from every cover charge to local homeless Charities.”

A typical menu will include:

Salads: Mango Salad, Kachumber, Tabbouleh

Starters: Vegetable Samosa, Mixed Vegetable Pakora, Seekh Kebab, Chicken 65, Dhai Balahi

Mains: Chicken Handi, Lamb & Potato, Dall Makhana, Vegetable Pilau Rice, Assorted Fresh Naan Bread, Chutney & Raita, Carvery, Roasted Lamb Raan, Chef Special Rice

Desserts: A selection of freshly made desserts

Drinks: Mango Lassi, water

Feature image – Zouk

Food & Drink

Manchester pasta restaurant The Sparrows has just won a prestigious new Michelin award

Georgina Pellant Georgina Pellant

Two months after it was listed in the prestigious Michelin Guide, Manchester European pasta and dumplings restaurant The Sparrows has been honoured by inspectors once again – this time with a Bib Gourmand.

The restaurant is just one out of 20 restaurants in the UK and Ireland to be awarded the coveted Michelin award, it was revealed yesterday.

The news comes ahead of the announcement of Michelin’s new starred restaurants, which will be unveiled on Monday.

Not quite a star, but most definitely not a consolation prize, the Bib Gourmand is named after Bibendum, the friendly Michelin Man and the official company mascot for the Michelin Group.

Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats

According to Michelin, it is a just-as-esteemed rating that ‘recognizes friendly establishments that serve good food at moderate prices.’

The new rating is definitely something for The Sparrows to be proud of, and another step up from its guide inclusion in January.

Read more: Reviewed: The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pasta and dumpling restaurant that just made the Michelin Guide

At the time, the guide described it as follows: “Nestled under the railway arches in Manchester’s Green Quarter is a restaurant whose name is (almost) the English translation of the word ‘spätzle’ – which gives some clue as to the style of food on offer here.

“The dumplings and assorted pasta dishes are all made in-house and include excellent pierogi. The focus on Eastern Europe carries through to the wine list, which has a leaning towards Polish wines.”

Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats

Now, it’s sure to have even more customers clamouring at the door.

Loved by locals for its continental pasta and dumplings, gorgeous European wine list and sake collection, The Sparrows in the Green Quarter is something of a hidden gem – tucked in a disused railway arch on Red Bank.

It received rave reviews from local and national critics alike when it first opened in 2019 in a tiny space with room for just 12 covers. Since then, it’s relocated to a bigger home and its following has grown significantly.

Read more: A restaurant in Ancoats is serving up plates of crispy fried squirrel

Front of house is headed up by Polish-born Kasia Hitchcock with her chef partner Franco Concli at the helm in the kitchen.

Plates celebrate Franco’s Tyrolean heritage, with their signature dish spätzle, a rustic fresh egg pasta from which the restaurant takes its name, sitting front and centre.

Feature image – The Manc Eats

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