In August, Edinburgh residents were treated to the delightfully diverting Hendrick’s Emporium of Sensorial Submersion – an unprecedented panoply of sensory enlightenment, which offered audible, palatable and tangible stimulation to all curiously minded individuals, in the homeland of Hendricks gin, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Within the sumptuous surroundings of 91 George Street, Hendrick’s Emporium of Sensorial Submersion immersed festival goers in the experimental, the esoteric and the entertaining. Charming cocktails enlivened auricular and gustatory perceptions. Guests left a smidgeon better educated and an imperial ton more befuddled by the absurd abilities of their very own senses.
Inspired by this most unusual gin, we collaborated with world-leading sound artist Mark IJzerman from HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, in order to create a programme of mind-expanding diversions that utilised the senses to deconstruct the cocktail drinking experience. They were enlightened by the harmonious sounds of cocktail shakers in the ‘Cacophony Bar’, had their palates and minds cleansed by the ‘Quietest Bar on Earth’, were part of a mysterious and magical synaesthetic experiment in a delightfully peculiar laboratory, channelled the forces of the Universe in the Quantumphysical Soundscape and were then purified in the Sonic Cucumber Bath