Hannah Sharman-Cox

The Path

Training at Bird College of Performing Arts gave Hannah Sharman-Cox a grounding in performance, timing and presence before her work moved into hospitality. Those skills read cleanly in service: pace, poise and the ability to hold a room without breaking the rhythm of the shift. Her first bar job in Essex, UK brought her onto the floor and behind the bar, where service is built through repetition, speed and attention to the cues that keep a bar moving. At Milk & Honey London, UK, she worked as a receptionist, a role that sits right at the point where hospitality begins. The door sets the tone, and reception is where standards become visible. In that position, Hannah Sharman-Cox was working with arrival, sequencing and first impression—the small operational details that shape how a venue is read before a drink is poured. Today, Hannah is Managing Director of London Cocktail Week, co-founder of The Pinnacle Guide, and co-founder of HANDS London. Read together, those roles show a career built around drinks culture and the systems that support it: promotion, recognition and collaboration. The thread is not just cocktails, but the standards, networks and structures that let hospitality function at scale.

The Work Today

Today she serves as co-founder and director of London Cocktail Week in London, and she also co-founded The Pinnacle Guide and HANDS London. Those roles define a career centered on drinks culture and bar standards. That work spans different parts of the trade. London Cocktail Week carries the scale of a citywide platform, bringing bars, bartenders and drinkers into the same frame. The Pinnacle Guide points to curation and recognition. HANDS London suggests the collaborative, practical side of an industry that depends on people working together. Across all three, Hannah Sharman-Cox is working on the conditions that let strong hospitality show up consistently.

Signature

Hannah's signature dishes include London Cocktail Week and The Pinnacle Guide. The signature here is institutional rather than individual: projects with name, purpose and reach. In that sense, Hannah Sharman-Cox is associated with the frameworks that help define how London drinks, gathers and judges quality.

In Their Words “The first being the rise and rise of non-alcoholic cocktails – low ABV bitters, ameros or vermouths served with tonics make a great autumnal drink.” “I was just really determined and a bit lucky, but also can’t bear to be beaten, can’t bear to be told I can’t do something.”

Acclaim

Her own words point to the working principles behind the career: determination, stubbornness and an eye for what the market is actually doing. Hannah Sharman-Cox has also said, "I have to say we are quite fond of being local," and pointed to "The first being the rise and rise of non-alcoholic cocktails – low ABV bitters, ameros or vermouths served with tonics make a great autumnal drink." Taken together, those lines describe an operator who watches shifts in drinking habits without dressing them up. There is attention to low ABV serves, to non-alcoholic cocktails, and to the seasonal character of a drink that lands in autumn. The through-line is consistency: a career made through persistence, clear standards and a close read of what the trade is doing now.