Vapoura Rum has turned The Mandrake Hotel into a record.
The super-premium English rum distilled, matured and bottled entirely in England has launched After Stories, an ongoing cultural collaboration series pairing the brand with culturally-led venues to produce exclusive vinyl EPs and bespoke cocktail menus inspired by the spaces themselves. The Mandrake is the first partner, marking Vol. 1 and with further venue partnerships to follow.
Each edition centres on a six-track vinyl EP, pressed by The Vinyl Factory and produced exclusively for the collaboration, with every track written in response to a different space within the hotel. A bespoke Vapoura cocktail menu, developed with the venue and informed by the EP, runs across the bars for a limited window.
Vapoura worked with two producers on the Mandrake edition: CARALUS, a Manchester-based producer known for deep organic groove and percussive tech, and Daniel Sehnawi, whose work fuses underground electronic music with Middle Eastern influence — between them, The Outernet London, Hi Ibiza, Phonox and Scorpios Mykonos.
Both were selected for their ability to translate atmosphere into music and each track takes its cue from a different corner of the hotel. Portal opens on the city outside before dissolving into the calm of arrival; Waeska captures the room’s balance of darkness and euphoria; Jurema draws on the terrace’s hidden-garden seclusion and Mashahari brings rolling basslines to their underground theatre. Across six tracks, the EP plays as a journey through the building rather than a backdrop to it.
“We never wanted to be just a rum brand,” explains Vapoura co-founder Olly Barkley. “We wanted to build a world around the liquid and from day one that meant thinking about the experiences, the spaces, the moments our rum lives in, not just what’s in the bottle.
“The Mandrake was a natural first partner. Few London venues are built with such distinct spaces – the botanical seclusion of Jurema, the dark energy of Waeska, the intimacy of YOPO Zaytoun – each with its own atmosphere to draw from. CARALUS and Daniel Sehnawi took each space in turn and turned its atmosphere into a track, so the record moves through the hotel as an evening there would”.
The Mandrake cocktail programme runs throughout the summer with Vapoura’s Chapter One and Chapter Two expressions available across all of the hotel’s bars for the duration. Three bespoke cocktails feature on the collaboration menu: Angel Sage, a citrus and botanical serve built on Vapoura Chapter One with orange and red sage soda; Sacred Bean, a layered serve of Vapoura, amaretto, sweet potato shochu, ube, white chocolate and tonka cream, and Velvet Cocoon, made with Vapoura Chapter One, Coconut Oil, Watermelon & Mango Cordial
The six track EP is available to stream now or a vinyl copy can be purchased from vapourarum.com priced £25 or £110 for vinyl with two full-sized bottles of Chapter One and Chapter Two.
