| Tucked behind landmark location Cre8 Lifestyle Center, the 2012 regeneration project based in the Old Baths, stands an all too familiar RV. If the orange stripes weren’t distinctive enough, the letters ABQ written across its vents nod to Albuquerque, the very spot in New Mexico that saw Walter White and Jesse Pinkman cook up the purest Crystal Meth in the critically-acclaimed series, Breaking Bad. The team behind this Breaking Bad-inspired cocktail cook-up is Locappy, the same folks responsible for the new neighbourhood app, and Annie the Owl. Founder Seb Lyall is dead set on providing unique experiences, ‘something a bit more special’, and with ABQ he certainly delivers. |  |
As W.W. said: "You and I will not make garbage. We will produce a chemically pure and stable product that performs as advertised”
The makeshift lab can hold up to 20 visitors over four cooking stations equipped with meth candy, ‘chemicals', petri dishes, pestle and mortars, measuring jugs, conical flasks, whipper flasks, nitrogen bullets and whisks. Sat on barrels we followed the crude scientific methods stuck to the walls, with the help of molecular mixologists Fluid Movement, to make two of the purest cocktails around. True to Walt and Jesse’s partnership we worked in pairs to complete each stage of the alchemy.
We cooked up the second batch of Saul’s C2H60 - a frozen cocktail using dry ice and nitrogen cavitation process of Bacardi Oro. Sure, the outcome was essentially a scoop full of blue, alcoholic sorbet-cum-slush-puppy served in a petri dish, but it came with a mighty kick, a refreshing smack in the face if you will!
The bitterness of the first was balanced with the sweetness of the second - a rum based strawberry infused cocktail accompanied by two lines of sherbet, cooked up at one of the other stations. Named Blue Flynn after he transformation Walt Junior was going through, it was served in a conical flask, and really hit the spot.
With the blinds masking reality, the sounds of mexican-style music overhead, and the high strength cocktails whizzing through our blood streams, leaving the RV and entering the real world was a bizarre experience.
The 35,000+ people that applied to ‘cook’ at Hackney Wick’s RV testify to Breaking Bad’s cult following; the three month cooking operation, running from July 24th until the end of October, sold out almost immediately.
Given that the RV is fully functional and since demand internationally to replicate the project has been strong, who knows where we’ll see ABQ pop up next…assuming it doesn’t come across the same hardships as Walt and Jesse’s ‘Crystal Ship’ that is!
Author: Sarah Moor
80 Eastway, Victoria Park, E9 5JH
abq.london
We cooked up the second batch of Saul’s C2H60 - a frozen cocktail using dry ice and nitrogen cavitation process of Bacardi Oro. Sure, the outcome was essentially a scoop full of blue, alcoholic sorbet-cum-slush-puppy served in a petri dish, but it came with a mighty kick, a refreshing smack in the face if you will!
The bitterness of the first was balanced with the sweetness of the second - a rum based strawberry infused cocktail accompanied by two lines of sherbet, cooked up at one of the other stations. Named Blue Flynn after he transformation Walt Junior was going through, it was served in a conical flask, and really hit the spot.
With the blinds masking reality, the sounds of mexican-style music overhead, and the high strength cocktails whizzing through our blood streams, leaving the RV and entering the real world was a bizarre experience.
The 35,000+ people that applied to ‘cook’ at Hackney Wick’s RV testify to Breaking Bad’s cult following; the three month cooking operation, running from July 24th until the end of October, sold out almost immediately.
Given that the RV is fully functional and since demand internationally to replicate the project has been strong, who knows where we’ll see ABQ pop up next…assuming it doesn’t come across the same hardships as Walt and Jesse’s ‘Crystal Ship’ that is!
Author: Sarah Moor
80 Eastway, Victoria Park, E9 5JH
abq.london
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