Editors Note: Harriet Leigh

The end of summer is always an extra bright time of year in Sydney. The light in the early evening is still strong, and it’s bouncing off the sequins across the Emerald City. From the beaches to the west, rainbows are coming out of closets to brighten all of our days.

This year for Mardi Gras, we've built on the creative direction for our signature artwork. We invited local Sydney artist Benja Harney to take inspiration from our usual floral rainbow and take it somewhere new. He really nailed the brief. I've known Benja for twenty years, almost exactly.

Appropriately, we met across a queer dancefloor in Sydney. Benja creates incredible artworks with paper, a discipline he developed when he was a student studying graphic design. While everyone around him was jumping on the digital bandwagon, Benja realised his heart lay in a far more analogue land. You can read all about Benja's artistic direction in this Journal edition.

We're also particularly delighted to have adapted Benja's work into a Tailored Gin label available throughout Mardi Gras. Then at the Archie Rose Bar & Cellar Door and at our Tailored Live activation at the QVB, the first 100 customers will receive an actual flower from Benja’s masterpiece attached to the label! These will go super quickly, so I thoroughly recommend getting to one of those locations if you can.

The parade is world-famous, for good reason. Hundreds of thousands of people line the route to cheer on the participants. And organising that is no walk in the park (it’s technically a walk up a street). We asked two incredibly hard-working and dedicated Mardi Gras team members, Dusty Hartland and Bel West, how they prepare for the marathon undertaking.

Our bar team has taken inspiration from some of their favourite social media personalities, and we created three cocktails in their honour. Read on to learn more about both the people and the drinks. These three stunning cocktails will be available at the Archie Rose Bar in Rosebery for the duration of the festival. I can personally attest to just how delicious and fruity they are. The drinks are great too. We’ve also had a hunt around for some other camp cocktail creations being served around Sydney so you don’t have to.

All in all this is one of our favourite times of the year, cheers to Mardi Gras and cheers to you!