It was the evening before the  (predicted) coldest day of the year and the Pendock Wine Gallery @ Taj was on fire. But then the exhibition of brandy was called ‘n Vuur gevang in glas and this was the opening. Christelle Reade-Jahn, CEO of the Brandy Foundation, did the honours and commented “three more people and you’re bigger than Fine Brandy Fusion.”

It was a wet dream for brandy marketers: young, old, middle-aged, eccentric, bizarre and business-like.

A broad church. A Serbian princess. A wheeler-dealer from Chicago. A TV producer. A magazine publisher.

There were even three small, shrill, Jewish oompah-loompah ladies on a girls’ night out. Alas, they were too short to fit into any of the photos but they were there sipping spirits in very high spirits, I promise.