After Hours

Port Eliot knows how to party according to Writer, Vermouth maker and Ethicurean co-founder Jack Adair Bevan.

“It is very difficult to explain exactly why I enjoy after dark at Port Eliot. There was a beautiful book that I read as I left school called ‘Le Grande Meulnes’ by Alain Fournier that goes some way to capturing the atmosphere and experience of this festival. It is the story of a young man who discovers an incredible masked ball in an old country house in France. He dances, talks, falls in love, all to a swirling backdrop of candlelight, costumes and people. He returns to his home and later attempts to find the house again but he can’t, like a dream that you can’t quite hold in your hand. I wont spoil the story. The late evenings at Port Eliot remind me of this.

I do still have a few memories from last year. Small glittering moments that are unrepeatable and beautifully unique. We began listening to ‘Matthew and Me’, a five piece band from Totnes, serene guitar solos, distorted and ethereal. A gentle beginning to the evening. We floated towards the Cocktail Caravan, tucked next to the Ace of Clubs, collected drinks and had a little glitter applied.

My memory is faded now but next thing I remember is being surrounded by a group of chaps next to a golf buggy dressed as a swan. One of the gentleman wore plus fours, a bakers cap and had an extraordinary handlebar moustache. He insisted on feeding me tequila from a glass slipper and I was assured it belonged to Cinderella. We walked through avenues of festoon lighting towards The Black Cow Saloon by the estuary that sat beneath the aqueduct. It seemed to appear from nowhere, Harley Davidsons parked outside, hay bales and a big fire. I stayed here a while before drifting towards the Boogie Round. This is a circular club in the woods accessed through a hidden hedge opening. It’s like entering another world where disco and glitter are the only things that matter. I cannot really remember very much more than that but it was bloody great.”