Christmas arrived early on the banks of the Diyawanna Oya last month, as Waters Edge rolled up its sleeves for the Cake Mixing and Mulled Wine Ceremony, a ritual reimagined this year through the swashbuckling spirit of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Gloved and aproned, guests tossed dried fruits and nuts with generous measures of spirits to create a rich mixture, which will be left to mature over the coming weeks before being baked into the hotel’s Christmas cakes, while glasses of warm, spiced mulled wine made their way around the gathering.
The ceremony was led by Waters Edge Chairman Chathura Krishantha Perera and General Manager Iyantha Abeysinghe, who were joined by members of the senior management team, the property’s loyal patrons and several well-known personalities, including popular actor Roshan Ranawana.
Cake mixing is widely traced to 17th-century Europe, where the year’s harvest of dried fruit and nuts was steeped in alcohol and set aside to herald a bountiful season ahead. Mulled wine goes back further still, to the Romans, who heated and spiced their wine to ward off the winter chill. Over the decades, the island’s hotels have embraced both as the customary curtain-raiser to their festive calendars.
Opened in 2004 as a golf and country club on the Battaramulla marshlands, Waters Edge spent much of its first two decades known as a hotel without rooms, building its name instead on banqueting, a cluster of speciality restaurants and sprawling waterfront lawns that few venues in the city can match. Owned by the Urban Development Authority, the property was the venue for the Heads of State retreat during the 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Its standing has risen markedly since Perera took charge in December 2024, with the opening of the property’s first room wing in May 2025 finally bringing overnight guests to Waters Edge. Oktoberfest at The Edge, which sold out all three nights last year, returned in October in a larger format.
With the mixture now resting, the ceremony formally opened the “Season of Happiness at the Edge,” the hotel’s festive programme leading up to Christmas.
