Normally when I go to events or blogger meetups I always tell myself that I’m going to come home and write a post right away so that I don’t forget anything that happened. What usually ends up happening is that I get home, bum around on Facebook for a while and tell myself I’ll do it ‘tomorrow after work’ (just like with the Heston Blumenthal sherry tasting I went to last night).

But not tonight! I just got home from the London Bloggers Meetup and I think they’re actually quite lucky I didn’t run home in the middle of the event to write down how great I think it was.

I’m not a complete stranger to the London Bloggers Meetup. I attended the second one when I was in London this past February.  The meetup was a much smaller affair then; just a few people hanging out with drinks dishing about blogs.  Tonight, however, was a full-out Event.

First off, there was a sponsor: Smirnoff.  Second, there were two Smirnoff ‘mixologists’ (I hate that term) behind the bar just for us. Third, these mixologists made us all custom drinks for our blogs.  They literally had an entire book full of everyone who had rsvp’d to attend with profile pictures, background information and a specific cocktail recipe custom-tailored to their blog.  This means that I got a Fake Plastic Noodle-tail.

My mixologist looked at my nametag, found me in the book, and goes, ‘Oh, Melanie!  Here we are – we’re actually twisting lemon skins for your noodles right now.’  They added a little ginger for spice because I work for onlinefire and of course a fair amount of Smirnoff.  (Rax, from Splendid, the fine people who represent Smirnoff, wanted them to actually turn my drink into a flaming shot, but alas it was not in the cards. Points for trying though!)

You will notice the lemon noodles at the top… Brilliant.

It was a great event from both a normal blogger attendee and PR-y point of view.  I could tell that the Splendid folks weren’t just going through the motions – they actually did research to figure out who I was and what my blog was like before making my drink; the Smirnoff people were friendly and knowledgeable and the bloggers were as always, a hoot.

Thanks to Andy and everyone for a great night! See the rest of my pics here.