Click the image to visit the Gosling's Rum website

Gosling’s Black Seal Rum is no exception, nestled as they are on the tropical island of Bermuda.

And, they would like to bring you and three of your bar team over to drink some Dark ‘N Stormys as god intended: On a Bermudian beach.

What arduous task do you have to complete to be in with a chance of winning this trip, I hear you ask?

Simple: Throw a party in honour of National Bermuda Day (NBD) on any day during the week of 24^th May*.

The best NDB party will win the trip for four, plus £1000 spending money.

The parties will be judged on:

• Bermudan-ness
• Originality
• Team & Customer participation
• Fancy Dress
• Attendance of the party
• Sales of Goslings Black Seal rum
• Any Press coverage
• Social Media Coverage

All you have to do to qualify is hold a kick ass Bermuda party plus put a Dark n Stormy on your menu or specials board for the month of May and of course stock Goslings Black Seal Rum.

To get involved, simply fill in the form below. Only 50 bars will be allowed to enter, so make sure you book your spot now*

*Win a trip to Bermuda Terms and Conditions

Do you ever feel you miss out on the brand sponsored overseas trips because you don’t do competitions or don’t work in one of the ‘fashionable’ London venues? If so this is the competition for you.

The best room I have ever been in

The Buffalo Trace Migration competition is beautiful in its simplicity, all you have to do is collect corks from each bottle of Buffalo Trace you sell. Each cork gives you a place in the monthly draw to win prizes such as iPads, Xboxes and Apple TV’s and then all your corks are thrown into the hat for the grand draw in July and your chance to get on the Kentucky Trip.

BarLifeUK were lucky enough to get the opportunity to visit the Buffalo Trace Distillery last year thanks to Hi-Spirits and it is an opportunity not to be passed up – read all about it here

We had the time of our lives but the 4 day trip you lot can be vying for is even more impressive as it includes:

• A behind the scenes tour of Buffalo Trace
• A tutored tasting by Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley
• VIP day at Keeneland races
• Special invitation to the ‘White Dog Day’ celebration as the still gets cranked up for the new distilling season
• Party at Kingston Mines Blues Bar in Chicago

If you sell Buffalo Trace in your bar then you have every chance of getting on this trip (and if you don’t then I’d give Hi-Spirits a call). Don’t worry if your venue isn’t high volume as all it takes to win is one cork, there are also lots of ways of earning extra corks (you get 10 extra just for signing up!).

Signing up takes 2 minutes so jump on the Buffalo Migration website and get involved. We are already very jealous.

Rum Renaissance is run by the dedicated Rob Burr and, is in its fourth successful year.

It is a week of sponsored rum parties, culminating in a rum fair and the all-important Tiki Off. For Rum fans, this is as good as it gets, and for sun fans, did I mention it was hosted in Miami?

Being both a rum and sun fan, I could hardly wait!

Set in North Beach Miami, Rum Renaissance attracts a host of aficionados, Rum lovers and fanatics.

Fanatics may seem quite a strong word but looking around on the first night  I witnessed  a sea of tiki shirts, a gallery of rum tattoos, and a couple of pirates.

Everyone here has certainly dedicated their lives to rum and some had travelled far to be here.  After I got over the initial scepticism of couples with matching tiki shirts (and the two pirates) I realised this was a pretty cool crowd who loved rum as much as I do. It was going to be a very special week!

The week began with a delicious BBQ and rum cocktails, hosted by Ron Zacapa. The next day was a visit to the Mai Kai, a world famous tiki mecca. A playground of totem poles, water falls, and coconuts, it was like something from the India Jones ride at Disney land. Not that I have been there- Alexx’s words.

Next evening we had the pleasure of a roof top party at the fancy Soho Beach house, hosted by Brugal, where it was the girls in Brugal Bikinis that made an impression. Then it was on to the Bacardi Penthouse, to celebrate Bacardi’s 150^th birthday. Here we were treated to some barrel aged El Presidentes, carbonated Bacardi cocktails and Mary Pickfords. Needless to say I was a big fan!

Day three was Diplotamicos turn to impress, with a pool side party in glamorous south beach. I have to say standing by the pool sipping on rum and watching the sun set was pretty special.

By Saturday we had all consumed a fair amount of rum, and now it was time for the all-important Rum Fair and the Tiki off!

The ‘Tiki off’ was a battle of egos between the UK’s finest Tiki bartender’s versus the US. Let’s be honest, this has always been a bit of an easy win for the UK, with half the US team being assembled on the day. But this year was to be different. The US team had matching Tiki shirts and fighting talk!

This year’s UK team consisted of the mild mannered Lyndon, Liars Club, the shy and retiring Alexx, Trailer, the gentlemanly Bart, Hula, the modest Georgie, Mahiki and the sensible Danny, from Aloha. I was the token lady from Bacardi there to sponsor, support, and wear a tiki shirt that Lyndon gave me!

Now I’m not sure if it was the fact that the UK team were half the size and half the age of most of the spectators at RR, but they were treated like rock stars, much to my dismay. But who am I to judge, they played their part and the yanks loved it.

Bacardi Rum has sponsored the UK team for four years running, and each year the boys have put on a show. This year was to be no different. Round one of the competition was ‘knowledge’ where the US took the lead. This made the UK team a little nervous. But not for long as they smashed every other round with a very strong and slightly embarrassing, lead before the final presentation.

The UK team put on an impressive final performance with a tiki themed Olympics! They created an impressive punch mixing Bacardi Superior, Gold, Black and Solera, in true tiki style. This won the gold and made the boys winners for the fourth year running.

The boys certainly did us proud and showed what we have to offer this side of the pond. I hear that the US team are already devising a plan for next year. I guess they need the practice.

On the surface of it, the question of ‘what’s a Martinez’ seems pretty self-explanatory.

After all, you can walk into any good bar, order one and be pretty confident about what you’ll get in your glass.

The chances are you’ll get a lot of sweet vermouth, a little bit of gin, a splash of maraschino and a dash or two of bitters.

Occasionally there might be a bit more gin and a little less vermouth, or you might get Boker’s bitters or orange bitters; you might even get a splash of curacao instead of maraschino, but all in all you’re likely to receive a sweet vermouth and gin cocktail, with a splash of liqueur and a dose of bitters.

Over the years there has been much debate about the intertwined history of the Martinez and the Martini, with speculation about whether the Martinez might be the forefather of the Martini or, if in fact they were once the same drink, known by similar names that got confused over the years.

The truth is we’re never likely to know, but somewhere along the way the two drinks have diverged to become completely different cocktails.

It’s now accepted that the Martini is made with dry vermouth and the Martinez with sweet, the former has no liqueur added but the latter is usually enriched with a barspoon of maraschino, the Martini is heavy on gin, with vermouth playing a supporting role, whereas the Martinez is a vermouth-led cocktail. In other words they are only connected in as much as that they are in the broad family of gin and vermouth based drinks.

So when I recently made a drink using the same ingredients as a modern Martinez, but in vastly different proportions, and posted the recipe on Twitter, I was shocked to hear people calling it a Martinez.

After all, 3 parts gin to 1 part sweet vermouth makes a completely different cocktail, in fact it was closer in profile to a Gin and It. An online discussion quickly ensued about what people consider a Martinez to be, and what the original spec was; it soon became clear that this is a cocktail with a hazy past, and even a somewhat muddled present.

Inspired by my previous blog about the Corpse Reviver, I thought a similar tactic might be employed to unravel the past of this delicious, but misunderstood drink. I immediately posted some questions on Facebook and Twitter, and once again Adam Elmegirab and Craig Harper dived in to assist in putting together a timeline of recipes for the Martinez in the hopes of understanding how we have arrived at the modern version we know today.

Along the way our research expanded into the entire family of gin, vermouth and bitters based cocktails, but that’s a subject for another time. In fact Adam is already well on his way to amassing a broad history of this family of drinks.

Why so much confusion?

It seems clear from the modern viewpoint that the Martinez is two parts sweet vermouth to one part gin, with a splash of maraschino and a dash of bitters. In fact when I asked bartenders what their standard recipe is for this drink, all of them said two to one ratios in favour of sweet vermouth, and almost everyone said maraschino and either Boker’s or orange bitters.

So if there is a reasonably standard modern recipe, then why am I implying that there is some confusion as to the recipe for the Martinez? It comes down to two things: vermouth choice and ratios.

You see if you refer to cocktail books from the 1930s and 40s most of them actually call for dry vermouth instead of sweet, in fact the first time I made myself a Martinez I followed the recipe from the Savoy Cocktail Book, which calls for dry.

So to me this has always been a drink that can be served both ways, sweet and dry. That already leaves the drink open to interpretation depending on where you first read the recipe in the first place. In addition, I’ve seen recipes calling for equal parts gin and vermouth, so even the ratio can be called into question.

This got me wondering about when the recipe changed from sweet to dry, and then back again to sweet? The trouble I soon realised from chatting with Adam and Craig is that there are surprisingly few recipes for the Martinez in any early cocktail books. In fact as Craig pointed out you almost never see the Martinez and the Martini in the same book.

So is it possible they are the same drink? Was the name and the recipe muddled in the early years of its invention, leaving us with two cocktails where originally there was just one?

What’s in a name?

The first recipe I have been able to find for the Martinez is from 1884, with only a handful of further recipes over the following two decades. Likewise the Martini makes an appearance only a couple of years after the Martinez and has it’s own handful of recipes in the late 1800s.

To make it even more confusing there are other drinks from the same era such as the Martine, Marguerite that also combine gin, vermouth and bitters. So is this just a classic case of Chinese whispers, with a drink being created and named, and then being passed on from bar to bar and slowly changing?

There are of course stories about where the name came from; some claiming it for the town of Martinez in California, others saying it was made for a customer who used to travel to the town. Still others claim that the Martini actually came first and that the Martinez was just confusion over the name.

Then again there are stories of a judge from New York whose name was Martine, so some believe this to be an East coast creation and nothing whatsoever to do with the town in California. Truth be told we’re unlikely to ever know the origins of the name.

Many claim that the Martinez was created in the 1860s and that the Martini came into being in the 1870s, but this is still hard to prove, so for me it seems sensible to start with recipes that have been recorded in cocktail books.

But if all we have are a handful of recipes scattered through a few publications over the years, then what’s the truth about this drink? Has it always been the sweet vermouth based drink we know today? Well let’s see if we can make some sense of it simply by tracking it through the years.

The early days of the Martinez

As I mentioned earlier, the first recipe for the Martinez that I’ve found (and I’d love to hear from anyone who knows of an earlier one, or a version I’ve missed from the timeline below) is from O H Byron in 1884. Unfortunately all he has to say on the subject is this:

“ Same as Manhattan, only you substitute gin for whisky.”

Now this wouldn’t be a problem if he had been considerate enough to list only one recipe for the Manhattan. There were unfortunately two Manhattan recipes listed directly above the entry for the Martinez, one with sweet vermouth one with dry (for full recipes see the timeline further down the page).

So maybe, as with many vermouth and spirit cocktails the Martinez was originally a drink that could be ordered sweet or dry? The problem with this theory is that we never see the Martinez listed in books with the two styles offered as we do with the Martini and the Manhattan.

Often these drinks are offered, for example, as the Dry Martini or the Sweet Martini with distinct recipes. Nowhere have I found the same for the Martinez. Still it’s a thought…

The next recipe that we find in print is from the 1887 revised edition of Jerry Thomas’ Bon Vivants Companion, which was published two years after his death. The recipe calls for one part Old Tom Gin to two parts ‘vermouth’.

Now we know from records that most vermouth in the US at this time was Italian (sweet) vermouth, and it’s taken for granted that unless French vermouth is specified, then Italian should be used. So it seems likely that this recipe is the one responsible for our current understanding of the Martinez as being a sweet vermouth cocktail.

Over the years as cocktails have gone in and out of fashion, at every resurgence bartenders have tended to turn to Jerry Thomas as their first point of reference.

Next up we have the Martinez recipe listed in Stuart’s Fancy Drinks from 1896, but unfortunately it seems that he has plagiarised O H Byron, as his entry is identical to the 1884 entry in that book (word for word, down to the order of the drinks). So other than being a second time that we see both a sweet and dry version, it doesn’t actually help us to understand how this drink might originally have been served.

Fast forward almost a decade to 1905 and we find a recipe for the Martinez in the romantically named Consolidated Library of Modern Cooking and Household Recipes, volume 5 by Christine Terhune Herrick and M. Harland, which is instantly recognisable as the first written record of the Martinez as we know it today.

The recipe calls for two parts vermouth (sweet?) to one part gin with two dashes of maraschino and a dash of Boker’s Bitters. Gum syrup may be added if desired. The parting shot is to point out that this recipe is exactly the same as the one before, which as you might have guessed, is for the Manhattan.

Manhattan? Martinez?

What can be made of these early recipes? Well keeping in mind some good advice I received recently from Dave Wondrich when he said, “I always try to be careful to distinguish between “it happened once or twice” and “it’s in common use.” The latter is much more important for writing history; firsts are in my mind highly overrated. People will do any damn thing once or twice.” It’s hard to draw any firm conclusions from so few recipes.

But it’s certainly interesting to note that three out of the four mentions of this drink compare it directly to the Manhattan cocktail.

We know that the Manhattan was by this time a popular and widely consumed drink, and we often see it served with either dry or sweet vermouth (or on occasion calling for both), so with this in mind, it is at least possible that the Martinez may have been served either way. I’m not for one moment stating this as fact, but instead offer it as food for thought, especially when viewing the next era in the history of the Martinez.

The Prohibition era Martinez

There’s a significant gap in the timeline of the Martinez as far as I’ve been able to tell (but hopefully readers will find some recipes to fill in the gaps) between 1905 and 1922, when we see a recipe appear in Cocktails How To Mix Them by Robert.

In this early prohibition era recipe he calls for equal parts Old Tom Gin and French vermouth, combined with either curacao or maraschino and orange bitters. This is just the start of a trend towards a drier style of drink.

Robert also states that in England the Martinez generally contains Plymouth gin and French vermouth, with orange syrup and Angostura bitters; once again pointing at a dry style of drink.

In 1930 the Martinez pops up in the Savoy Cocktail Book with an almost identical recipe to the Martinez listed in Robert’s book, only not specifying Old Tom and simply listing gin instead. So yet again we have a dry style of Martinez appearing in print.

This is also true of the recipe in 1700 Cocktails for the Man Behind the Bar, in 1924, where the recipe is for several servings.

Here we have three glasses of Plymouth gin and three of French vermouth combined with a dessertspoon of orange bitters and two dessertspoons of curacao or maraschino. In the same year Patrick Gavin Duffy included an identical recipe (again for six people) in his book the Official Mixer’s Manual.

In 1935’s Old Mr. Boston we find the first recipe specifying dry gin, as by this time Old Tom had fallen out of fashion and London Dry was the go-to style of gin for cocktails. Once again equal parts of dry gin and French vermouth are combined with orange bitters and curacao.

So it seems that in the 1920s and 30s dry vermouth was the standard ingredient for the Martinez, and the ratio had changed from being vermouth heavy to equal parts vermouth and gin. The drier style of drink is not surprising as this was very much the taste of that era, in fact this is the period where we start seeing the Martini grow more and more dry, so perhaps this is nothing more than the fashion of the era?

In fact the trend towards dry vermouth is still there in 1946 when Trader Vic includes a Martinez in his Bartender’s Guide, made of equal parts gin and French vermouth, with ½ a teaspoon each of orange bitters and curacao.

It’s interesting that in the ten recipes above only two specify sweet vermouth, two offer it both dry and sweet and the remaining six all call for dry vermouth. While this is still not such a weighty catalogue of evidence as to be able to state that the Martinez should rightly be made using dry vermouth, it is enough to say that it has been made that way in the past, possibly from the time it was first conceived of.

I also can’t help but notice that curacao was called for more often than maraschino, and while we’re usually only talking about a couple of dashes this is enough to change the profile of the drink.

To me this makes some sense when you think about the other ingredients involved; Old Tom Gin was sweeter than the modern style and more full bodied, liqueur is being added to this contributing yet more sweetness, so wouldn’t it make sense to use dry vermouth to balance the drink?

We’ll probably never know how the drink was intended to be, but it’s at least interesting to open ones mind to the possibility that the Martinez may once have been intended as a dry vermouth drink and not the sweet one we know today.

The modern Martinez

So how have we arrived at the modern Martinez? After all, when you look at the history above almost all of the drinks call for dry vermouth and not sweet, many are equal parts gin and vermouth, and a lot of them call for curacao and orange bitters. These differences from the modern understanding of the Martinez are significant enough to make them worth thinking about.

The key to me, as I mentioned earlier, is the importance placed on Jerry Thomas’ book, The Bon Vivant’s Companion, or How to Mix Drinks. The first edition in 1862 is also the first cocktail book in existence, and as such is often the starting place for bartenders to gain insight into the classic cocktails of the 1800s.

But although I agree it’s an important book, but it’s by no means infallible. The fact that the Martinez doesn’t appear in the first edition and wasn’t added until two years after Thomas’ death, means that we don’t even know the real source of this recipe.

Who was it that edited this book and added the Martinez? Where did he or she get their recipe? It seems to me unlikely that a drink that was in the process of establishing itself in the repertoire of bartenders of that era had a standard spec, so why does this interpretation carry so much weight?

I suspect it’s no coincidence that our modern version of the Martinez contains maraschino, and that this is one of the few recipes to call for it, and not at least give the option of curacao. In fact, looking at the recipe it is remarkably similar to the modern standard that so many bartenders take for granted.

I’m not saying that the industry is wrong, or that bartenders have their facts mixed up, but if you look through the recipes I’ve found so far, it seems that the jerry Thomas recipe has been held up as the correct one, without much thought being given to other recipes of the time.

So, is there any such thing as a Martinez?

What conclusion can be drawn from all of the above? We can see that in our current cocktail culture the Martinez is a well-known drink that is widely accepted as being made with sweet vermouth and gin (Old Tom), some maraschino and bitters.

It’s clear from looking at the timeline below that it has not always been made this way though and for at least some of its life was a dry vermouth and gin based drink.

Also worth thinking about is the fact that for a drink that is so well established in the repertoire of modern bartenders there are surprisingly few references to it in cocktail books over the years.

It seems likely to me that if it had not been included in two of the most important and well respected cocktails books of all time, this drink might very well have faded into oblivion, despite the fact that it is a damned tasty cocktail.

The fact that the two recipes are so very different can at least partly be put down to the availability of ingredients in different countries and different eras, and also to the fashion for sweeter drinks in the 1880s and dry drinks in the 1920s. None the less there is enough difference between recipes from across the decades that it calls into question what the Martinez really was.

In fact, given the intertwined history of the Martini, Martinez, Martine and even the Turf Club, it’s almost impossible to know if they were all the same drink, but known by different names or if they were designed to be different from the outset.

Seeing as we have arrived at a time and place where we do indeed have two individual drinks, it probably doesn’t matter what the original intention behind them was, they have grown apart, and now stand on their own merits as individual cocktails.

So here is a timeline of recipes, for a drink that may or may not ever have been intended to be different from the martini, and may or may not have originally been made with dry vermouth:

1884 – OH Byron – ‘same as Manhattan but with gin replacing whisky’

Martinez 1

• 1 pony French vermouth, ½ pony gin, 3 or 4 dashes Angostura bitters, 3 dashes gum syrup

Martinez 2

• 2 dashes curacao, 2 dashes Angostura bitters, ½ wineglass gin, ½ wineglass Italian vermouth

1887 – Jerry Thomas – revised edition 2 years after his death

Martinez – 1

• dash Boker’s bitters, 2 dashes maraschino, 1 pony Old Tom gin, 1 wineglass vermouth.

1896 – Stuart’s Fancy Drinks and how to mix them

• Identical recipe to OH Byron 1884 and once again compared to the Manhattan, served both dry and sweet

1905 – Consolidated Library of Modern Cooking and Household Recipes, volume 5

• Martinez – shake up well and strain into a large cocktail glass 1 dash of bitters, 2 dashes of maraschino, 1 pony of Old Tom gin, 1 wineglassful of vermouth, 2 small lumps of ice. Add a slice of lemon, and gum syrup if desired, as in last recipe (Manhattan)

1922 – Cocktails and How to Mix Them by Robert

• Martinez cocktail – 2 dashes orange bitters, 3 dashes curacao or maraschino, ¼ gill Old Tom Gin, ¼ gill French vermouth
• Martinez in England – 2 dashes orange syrup, 2 dashes Angostura bitters, ¼ gill Plymouth gin, ¼ gill French Vermouth

1930 – Savoy Cocktail Book

• Martinez cocktail (6 people) – Pour into the shaker 3 glasses of gin, 3 of French vermouth, add a dessertspoonful of orange bitters and 2 of curacao or maraschino. Shake and serve with a cherry and a piece of lemon rind

1934 – 1700 Cocktails for the Man Behind the Bar

• Martinez – 3 glasses Plymouth gin, 3 glasses French Vermouth, 1 dessertspoonful orange bitters, 2 dessertspoonful curacao or maraschino, serve with a cherry and a lemon rind

1934 – Official Mixer’s Manual, Patrick Gavin Duffy

• Same recipe as 1700 Cocktails for the Man Behind the Bar

1935 – Old Mr. Boston

• Martinez cocktail – ½ dry gin, ½ French vermouth, 1 dash orange bitters, 1 dash curacao

1946 – Trader Vic – Bartender’s Guide

• ¾ oz gin, ¾ oz French vermouth, ½ tsp orange bitters, ½ tsp curacao

So there we have it, 10 recipes for the Martinez spanning from 1884 to 1946, with the majority specifying dry vermouth.

The gin, we can accept, changes through the ages as Old Tom becomes less popular and gives way to London Dry and in some cases even Plymouth. Most of the recipes offer your choice of either maraschino or curacao, and many call for orange bitters too.

And so we have a modern drink that doesn’t sit perfectly against its forefathers, but does sit comfortably with the version included by an anonymous editor of Jerry Thomas’ work, who added his recipe two years after the professors’ death.

I love a good Martinez and will gladly accept the current version of this drink whenever someone wishes to stir one up for me. That being said I can’t wait to try all of the recipes above to see how they differ, but that’s a blog for another day.

I hope to get many of those who contributed their research to this blog together, so that we can try these recipes alongside each other to get a real feel for how the drink evolved. In the meantime I’ll make do with my own version of this drink… after all, as long as you combine roughly the right ingredients, you seem to be able to call anything a Martinez!

The Compromised Martinez

• 45ml Hammer & Son Old English Gin
• 45ml Noilly Ambre vermouth
• 1 Dash curaçao
• 1 Dash maraschino
• 1 Dash orange bitters
• 1 Dash Boker’s bitters

Stir or shake (after all both methods have been used over the years), then strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with your choice from the following: a cherry, a lemon twist, a slice of lemon, or all three, it’s entirely up to you!

Please if you have more information or recipes for the Martinez, we’d love to hear from you and add it into the timeline of this ever evolving cocktail.

Further reading – in reply to the question posed in the title of this article Adam Elmegirab has posted his thoughts and research regarding the intertwined nature of the Manhattan, Martinez and Martini here. an excellent read and definitely states the case for the camp who believe that the Martinez was a sweet vermouth drink from the outset!

also see this great chart based on the timeline above as created by Tristan Stephenson of Purl and Whistling Shop fame:

Ali Dedianko at the Tales of the Cocktail Rematch in 2011

You might not guess it to look at us, but BarLifeUK has a musical past.

We’ve played the Marquee Club and the odd festival, and have seen terror in a bandmate’s eye as he steps on stage in front of a baying crowd of drunk hooligans.

We’ve felt creeping numbness in our fingers and know the fear of a sudden blank mind when stage fright robs you of the ability to do something you can normally do in your sleep – all in front of an audience.

Competing in Rematch Beeyatch is worse.

We’ve witnessed it on three continents, and have seen some big bold boys fall apart under the pressure. So whoever wins the latest iteration of the Rematch Car Crash will be the owner of some pretty big cojones (even if it is a girl), and a large pile of money.

For the uninitiated, Rematch is a Tiki speed comp. Initially beginning as a way of settling some trash-talking between Paul Mant and Tim Stones, it grew into what is now a world-wide competition.

NVT: Free armpit-hair garnish with every cocktail

There are no sponsors, just bartenders with £50 in their pocket. You pay your entry fee, receive the drink specs and smash them out on the night as quickly as you can. The winner takes the pot and probably the biggest rights to bragging in the industry. Until someone younger and fitter beats your time.

Rematch Beeyatch has been quite mercurial of late, with the odd heat popping up in Australia and in the US at Tales of the Cocktail.

However, they have got their shit well and truly together this year, and have organised a co-ordinated, international frenzy of heats, all taking place on May 14^th. There are seven cities involved around the world, with the UK Rematch taking place at London’s Trailer Happiness.

Each heat winner will get their stake back, but the bartender with the fastest global time will win the pot. There are spaces for over 100 competitors, so the pot will be substantial.

It would be pretty tragic if the overall winner isn’t a UK bartender and Rematch goes the way of football, cricket and all the other sports we invented – dominated by foreigners.

So your country needs you.

To enter the UK Rematch Beeyatch, contact Max at Trailer Happiness, keep the 14^th free and start practicing your four-bottle-pours.

Want to be here?

The Swizzle is one of the most iconic rum drinks in the world and El Dorado Rum would like you to invent your own twist for a chance to win a trip to the distillery (and a whole lot more – we’ve been told skinny dipping with Piranhas took place on the last trip!).

Using the form below we are asking you to send us your Swizzle recipe before Midday 16th May, once received we will be announcing the competitors going through to the 5 national heats which will be taking place between the 28th May & 14th June.

Once the heat competitors have been announced on the 16th May they will be expected to promote their drink in their bar in the run-up to the comp. Evidence of this promotion through photo’s, videos, explanations etc will be expected at the heats.

The Swizzle recipes MUST contain the following elements – El Dorado Rum, something sweet, something bitter, something sour and something non-alcoholic before being swizzled. The rest is up to you.

Award winning Global Brand Ambassador for El Dorado Stefanie Holt has written a piece on the History of the Swizzle here to give you some background information and help with your creations.

Get your creative hats on and give yourself a chance to win this awesome prize.

Heats will be judged using the following criteria:

• Name – 10 points
• Appearance – 15
• Aroma – 10
• Taste – 30
• Technique – 10
• Promotion of drink at bar – 10
• Knowledge – 15

Alex Proudfoot

Cocktail competitions hosted by liqueur brands often spark an extra level of creativity in competitors.

This happens because the brand needs to be well represented in the drink, but as ever balance of flavour is paramount.

To achieve both aims, and create a recipe that can stand up outside of the competition, bartenders really have to think about flavour, and sometimes look to unusual ingredients.

The UK final of the Domaine de Canton competition, held last week at the Shaftsbury Avenue London Cocktail Club, proved to be a case in point, with some incredible drinks offered to the judges, along with some really first rate food pairing.

The stakes were high, too, as the ultimate aim was to follow in the footsteps of last year’s winner, Stuart Fritz, who represented the UK at the global final in St. Martin, which he went on to win, pocketing $10,000 in the process.

Jake Burger

There were four or five drinks that were universally rated by the competition judges, and in the final count, there was just half a point separating first and second place.

Alex Proudfoot, fresh from his recent heat-win during the Appleton Estate Bartender Challenge,  presented the Merchant Milk Punch, which was one of the best that BarLifeUK have tasted this year, and took a completely different and original approach to using Domaine de Canton in a cocktail.

Second place went to The Portobello Star’s Jake Burger. It was great to see him on the competition stage again and his presentation skills remain some of the best on the circuit.

A special mention was made to Luca Missaglia of Quo Vadis who was also right on the money. Neither Jake or Luca put a foot wrong, they were just narrowly beaten by a fantastic drink from Alex.

The drinks

Alex Proudfoot, Raoul’s Bar: The Merchant Milk Punch

• 50ml Almond milk
• 50ml Domaine de Canton
• 25ml Bols Genever
• 10ml Dry Curacao
• 2 Large dashes Peychuad’s bitters

Combine and shake briefly with cubed ice. Double strain and dust with grated nutmeg,

Jake Burger, The Portobello Star: The Dingaling

• 25ml A.E. Dor VSOP Cognac
• 25 Lillet Blanc
• 25ml Domaine de Canton

Mist glass with orange flower water and fill with ice to chill. Combine ingredients and shake. Strain over hand-cracked ice. Crown with a layer of mineral water, garnish with an orange twist and a mint sprig.

Luca Missaglia, Quo Vadis: Aperitif de Canton

• 25ml Licorice infusion (grain spirit)
• 25ml Bergamot
• 45ml Domaine de Canton

Shake, double strain. Garnish with bergamot zest. Served with a plate of Quo Vadis oysters.

Grand Marnier’s Le Grand Bal was one of last year’s highlights, so we are looking forward to their latest project, the Sunset Hours Parisian Chic Competition.

Essentially, Grand Marnier want you to come up with a summer drink based on Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge.

You will join the team for a day to discover more about the history and production of the liqueur during a session led by Julien Lafond, UK Brand Ambassador, and sample the different cuvees and cocktails that Grand Marnier offers.

This Session will be followed by the Grand Marnier Sharing Drinks Competition, during which bartenders will be asked to demonstrate their skill by creating a sharing drink/long drink featuring Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge.

The Winners from each heat (Edinburgh, Manchester, London East, London West and Bristol) will go to the final in London to find out who will be crowned the Grand Marnier Sharing Drink Competition 2012 grand winner.

Competition Terms and Conditions

• The bar needs to be stocking Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge
• The sharing drinks/Long drink recipe has to be easily replicable in Bars
• No more than 4 ingredients
• The recipe can be presented as a sharing drink for 4 people or as a single long drink
• No homemade ingredients
• The ingredients have to be easily sourced, suppliers in the UK or supermarkets
• A minimum of 40ml of Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge for one serve (long drink) or 160ml minimum for a sharing drink
• There will be 5 Heats: Edinburgh, Manchester, London East End, London West End and Bristol
• The person that collects the most points during the Each Heat will win the heat and qualify for the final in London
• Each Heat will be judged by Grand Marnier UK Brand Ambassador, Julien Lafond and another judge
• There will be 1 wild card given to a non-finalist participant, which will be decided through volume after his cocktail has been listed in his bar
• A minimum of 200 cocktails will be required to enter the Wild Card draw that will be decided by collecting supplier invoices and sales report
• The 6 Finalists can offer their serve/sharer on their menu or as a cocktail of the month at least a month prior to the event with extra points given to the one that sold the most
• The finalists will have their drinks up on the Grand Marnier UK Facebook page, promoting it as a great Summer Long Drink with Grand Marnier with their name and the name of the Bar/Company during the time of the competition
• The Grand Final will be held in London in a venue TBC in June 2012, between the 6 finalists.
• The Finalist that gets the most points over the final will be crowned The Grand Winner 2012 and win a trip for two to the Home Of Grand Marnier in Bourg Charentes. (Dates subjects to availability to be arranged with Julien Lafond.)
• The Second will win a Bottle of Grand Marnier Cent Cinquantenaire
• The Third will win a Bottle of Grand Marnier Centenaire
• All recipes will become property of Marnier Lapostolle Family.

Becky Davies on her way to winning the comp

BarLifeUK love judging competitions in Manchester (but not necessarily the way we feel the morning after), because the standard is always first rate.

The Gin Mare Manchester heat, held last week at the Boutique Bar Show, was no exception, and gave us the opportunity to taste some of the best competition drinks we’ve sipped in a while.

Tasked with creating a Dirty Martini twist and an original, Mediterranean-inspired cocktail, the winner of the heat would secure a seat on the plane to Ibiza later in the year.

The Gin Mare villa in Ibiza will host the UK final in order to select one bartender who will go on to represent the UK in the World final held there later in the week.

Susie Wong

Judged by BarLifeUK, CASK Liquid Marketing (UK distributor of Gin Mare) big cheese, Stuart Ekins, and renowned cocktail historian and author, Anistatia Miller, the Manchester heat set the bar very high for the coming UK qualifiers in Leeds, London and Edinburgh.

Aside from the drinks, we were very impressed by the standard of presentation.

None of the competitors were fazed by the noisy conditions of the exhibition competition stage, and everyone had clearly done a lot of homework on the brand.

Charlene Holt

Props go to Manchester’s bartenders who clearly know how to approach a competition… There are  a few Southern ‘tenders who could learn a thing or two from their Northern colleagues in this arena.

The score sheets showed that the judges unanimously scored Becky highest, although we have to say the difference between first place and third was very small.

So we offer huge congratulations to Sandinista’s Becky Davies for a well-deserved first place on her cocktail competition debut.

Honorable mentions also go to Susie Wong who came in second, and Charlene Holt who placed third. It is great to see the region’s top-notch female bartenders leading the way in competitions.

If you would like to enter one of the coming Gin Mare Mediterranean Inspirations heats, click here.

The Drinks

Becky Davies

Original Drink – Salt of the Sea

• 50ml Gin Mare
• 12.5ml Velvet Falernum
• 25ml Lemon juice
• 12.5ml Gomme
• Absinthe sugar drip
• Egg white
• Lemon zest
• Spiced salt

Combine. Dry shake then wet shake. Serve in a martini glass

Dirty Martini Twist – Rose Mare

• 60ml Gin Mare
• 20ml Campari
• 10ml Crème d’Apricot
• Cracked pepper

Susie Wong

Original Drink – Calypso Goddess

• 40ml Gin Mare
• 20ml Ginger Wine
• 10ml Cointreau
• 35ml Orange Juice
• 35ml Sunraysia Carrot Juice

Dirty Martini Twist – Inari

• 50ml Gin Mare
• 20ml Sawanotsuru Sake
• 10ml Dry vermouth
• 15ml Olive brine

Charlene Holt

Original Drink – Sea of Tranquility

• 50ml Gin Mare
• 6-8 Basil leaves
• 1 Stick celery
• 15ml Gomme
• 15ml Freshly squeezed lime juice
• 40ml Eager pressed apple juice
• Dash celery bitters
• Thai fish sauce

Muddle celery with celery bitters, lime and secret ingredient, tear basil leaves and gently bruise, add Gin Mare, gomme and apple juice, shake and strain into chilled vintage glassware and garnish with celery ribbons.

Dirty Martini Twist – Rado Rose

• 60ml Gin Mare
• 20ml Noilly Prat
• 1 Dash celery bitters
• 1 Sprig of rosemary
• 1 Spoon olive brine

Stir all ingredients together, fine strain into a chilled Martini glass, lemon zest (discard) and garnish with rosemary infused olives.

Rachel Ramshall-Smith on her way to winning an honourable mention during the Bristol heat

BarLifeUK have travelled the length and breadth of the UK with the Appleton Estate Bartender Challenge, judging heats, drinking Mai Tais and generally immersing ourselves in the country’s various bar communities.

It’s fair to say that everyone takes this competition seriously; it’s one of the ones that bartenders want to win. The regional heats reflected this, and they were pretty rigorous.

Each competitor had to make three drinks: one Vic’s Mai Tai, one classic rum cocktail pulled at random from a hat, and their own original drink, which was to be presented with a full GP breakdown and justification.

But before they even walked behind the bar, competitors also had to complete a written rum test. The combination of the test and the prospect of making an un-rehearsed cocktail from the hat was pretty hardcore, and it foxed a few individuals. As did knowing the correct specs for a Vic’s Mai Tai… We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again:

If you are going to enter a comp, read the specs and make sure you’ve learned everything you need to learn!

What you can't see is that Jamie has his tongue out and socks off in an effort to add the scores

The regional heats were something of a surprise and quite different to any rum comp we’ve judged before. With the notable exception of Bristol (twin-blender-Miami-Vice-twist action, sun lamps and sand boxes for the judges’ feet) there was very little ‘tiki-madness’.

And again, with the notable exception of East London (8, before we lost count, much to a hungover JJ’s chagrin), there were very few ‘shots for the judges’. Is this a sign that rum is growing up? Who knows, although to be honest, we did miss the madness a little.

However as they say, cream (or Coco Lopez) always rises to the top, and eight finalists won their heats and will be going on to the two-day UK final in June (Details on the final will follow shortly).

The UK Finalists

• London West: Joshua Reynolds, Pollen Street Social
• Bristol: Richard Tring, Milk Thistle
• London / South: Alex Proudfoot, Raoul’s Oxford
• Leeds: Jamie Stephenson, Corridor Manchester
• London East: Stuart Hudson, Hawksmoor & Lee Potter Cavanagh, Hix
• Edinburgh: Murray Drysdale, Rick’s & Kevin Griffin, The Raconteur

The Winning Drinks

Joshua Reynold – Queen’s Estate

• 50ml Appleton VX
• 20ml Dubonnet Rouge
• 15ml Benedictine
• 2 dashes St Elizabeth Allspice Dram

Garnish (Pink Grapefruit Twist, Discarded.) Served – Coupette

Richard Tring – the Bristol Connection

• 50ml Appleton VX
• 15ml Amer picon
• 10ml Cider syrup
• 2 dash Orange bitters

Stir, serve in a coupette glass with a Grapefruit garnish

Alex Proudfoot – The Karstaway

• 60ml Appleton VX
• 25ml Lillet Blanc
• 10ml Orange shrub (home made)
• 1 Dash Angostura bitters

Stir and serve over ice. Garnish with lemon twist and ground coriander seeds

Jamie Stephenson – Dreadlock Holiday

• 60ml Appleton VX
• 25ml Monin banana puree
• 25ml Coconut milk
• 8 Dash Angostura bitters
• 10ml Monin cinnamon syrup
• Dash egg white

Shake all ingredients well and strain into a chilled compete. Garnish with banana slices

Stuart Hudson – Cockpit Cocktail

• 50ml Appleton VX
• 10ml Aperol
• 10ml Cherry Heering
• 5ml Kamm & Sons
• 2 Dash orange bitters

Combine ingredients, throw and strain. Come on, it’s Hudson. What did you expect?

Lee Potter Cavanagh – The Bend Down

• 50ml Appleton 12YO
• 2 dashes chocolate bitters
• 2 Dashes orange bitters
• 10ml Demerara sugar syrup
• 5 Coffee beans

Garnish with a flamed cinnamon quill and orange twist. Serve with a side of Hix Oyster Stout

Murray Drysdale – RumImporter

• 40ml Appleton 8YO
• 15ml Flying Dog Porter reduction (4 parts water to 1 part sugar – reduce)
• 12.5ml PX Sherry
• 5 Drops liquorice bitters
• 5 Drops Angostura bitters

Stir down over block ice. Serve straight up in a coupe with an orange twist

Kevin Griffin – Suppertime with Shakespear

• 40ml Appleton 8YO
• 15ml Licor 43
• 15ml Mantineia Sherry (smoked with pink grapefruit zest and Granny Smith apple smoke)

Stir down over block ice. Serve over balled ice in a teacup, with a side of good quality ginger cake.

We resisted the urge to get our tongue stuck on this...

And with good reason, because a glass full of good ice can turn the humble gin and tonic into an all-time great drink, something that is unfortunately much misunderstood by customers.

Having recently used them for an event we were running, Eskimo Ice invited us to come to their factory for a look round. And so, on one of the hottest days of the year so far, we spent an hour breathing steam in New Covent Garden market.

Eskimo’s warehouse is an ice-carver’s dream. There are huge, 120KG blocks along one wall in a room full of tools you would expect to see in a mechanic’s workshop.

The drills, sanders and saws are used to turn the blocks into an almost limitless variety of sculptures, including luges, corporate logos, and our personal favourite, rather fetching visions of the female form.

Some of the blocks are milky white, while others are crystal clear. I asked how this was achieved and was told that to create the ice, water is bombarded with UV rays to eradicate bacteria, then filtered to remove any solid particles.

Where's Ueno San when you need him?

Once this is done, to create clear ice the water is constantly circulated by pumps as it cools, which prevents bubbles forming around the ice crystals. This process means it takes a week for one 120KG block to freeze. The water used in opaque blocks is not circulated, and so the resulting bubbles make the ice look milky.

The 120KG blocks really are huge, and probably a little unwieldy for use by bartenders would like to carve their own ice. However, Eskimo also supply smaller, 30KG blocks that measure 50 x 22 x 25cm, which would be perfect for the job. These cost £29.40 and can be delivered for free anywhere in Central London.

You’ve probably seen Eskimo Ice vans bowling about London’s streets, delivering the customary bags of cubed, crushed and flaked. However, they also supply ice balls in both 5.5 and 6.6cm diameters, the latter fitting perfectly in an Old Fashioned glass.

We were also particularly impressed with some large, oversized cubes we found in our sample pack. They fit snugly in a standard highball, and looked fantastic in the resulting Monkey 47 gin and tonics we made, keeping the drink freezing cold for ages.

High ABV spirits only in this, obviously...

Any bars or brands looking for unusual or creative sculptures or centerpieces should give Eskimo a buzz too.

They showed me plans for an ice bar that looked pretty epic, and at the slightly smaller end of the scale, they can create a sculpture that completely encases a bottle but still allows the liquid to be served. This looked great and showcased the bottle perfectly.

The team at Eskimo were keen to talk about the weird and wonderful projects they have been asked to work on, and were very enthusiastic when I mentioned cocktail competitions.

It seems that as long as they are given a bit of notice, ‘the answer is yes, what’s the question’ seems to be the case when it comes to designing eye-catching ice.

As regular competition judges ourselves, BarLifeUK would be very impressed if some of those oversized cubes were rocked out in a drink we had to score.

The Eskimo Ice website is well worth a look, and they are happy to have a chat on the phone if you have any questions about all-things-ice.

Visit the Eskimo Ice website here.

Last year's Manchester show

The North’s best bar trade show is rolling back into Manchester next month, bringing with it some cracking competitions, speakers and, of course, brands. You can register for your free ticket by clicking here, and listed below are some of the things you can expect to see at the show.

Competition Stage

• 10:30am – 12:30pm – Gin Mare Mediterranean Inspiration Competition

The North of England’s finest bartenders will compete for the ultimate Ibiza trip to battle it out to be the UK’s finest and ultimately take on the rest of the world to take the top title. Someone from the Manchester heat will be on a plane to Ibiza in September so get your entry in here.

• 1:00pm – 3:00pm – Purity Vodka Competition

With this year marking the Diamond Jubilee, Purity vodka invite you to create the ultimate Jubilee Martini. Keep the essence of Purity Vodka as pure as possible and you could be in with a chance of winning a trip to the distillery, a feature on BarLifeUK and bragging rights with the Queen. To enter, send your cocktail to editorial@barlifeuk.com

• 3:30pm – 5:30pm – Inter-city Tiki Speed Competition

Who is the Quickest in the North? Which city will take this year’s crown to laud over the others for the next 12 months? Teams from Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Chester and Nottingham will fight it out in a 6 drink, relay, speed round to make some of the most famous rum drinks using some of the finest rums on the market. It will be loud, it will be messy and it will be quick.

Seminar Room

• 9:30am – 11:30am – Blend Your Own Rum with Banks 5 Island Rum

This invite-only event is a unique opportunity to blend your own rum using the 4 navy rum rums found in Banks 5 Island Rum. James Triffo from Banks will be joined by Mal Evans to talk you through the blending process in general with a specific look at the Banks methodology before giving you the tools, and most importantly the rum, to blend your own. Once blended the rum will be laid down for a month before James and BarLifeUK return to Manchester to open up and run a tasting session. To apply for a ticket to this invite only event email simon@barlifeuk.com.

• 12:00pm – 1:00pm – Jake Burger and Portobello Gin present The Ginstitute.

Join Jake for a whirlwind history of gin, followed by a deconstructed tasting of Portobello and its 9 distilled botanicals. The session will end with a quiz, the winner of which will be invited to visit the Ginstitute as Portobello Gin’s guest, where they will be able to blend their own bottle of gin.

• 1:30pm – 2:30pm –Barrel Aging Cocktails with Audrey Fort from G’Vine and Giuseppe Gallo from Martini

Over the last two years the Barrel Aging Cocktails trend has swept the bartending world from San Francisco to Tokyo and back again. Over the last 18 months G’Vine have been aging a series of gin cocktails and scientifically studying the aging process and the effects this has on the cocktails in the barrels.

Following sold out talks at Tales of the Cocktail and Bar Convent Berlin, Audrey will be bringing her latest creations and the research gathered from them to a UK show for the first time. She will be joined by Giuseppe who will be looking at the practical application of this trend and how best bars can benefit from it. To top it all off you will be able to try some of their greatest creations at the same time.

• 3:00pm – 4:00pm – 30 Cocktails That Changed The World (Bought to you by Buffalo Trace)

Join award-winning drinks historians Jared Brown & Anistatia Miller as they explore the history of mixed drinks and cocktails as it developed over five major periods from the 1500s through 2000s.
In their notoriously tongue-in-cheek style, these cocktail detectives unearth the mixing techniques, drink styles, appearance of new ingredients, tools, and service ware that were born:

1. before the birth of the cocktail
2. during the cocktail’s infancy
3. during the American Golden Age of the cocktail
4. during the European Golden Age of the cocktail
5. and from the 1940s through today

This session will stimulate your creative juices and inspire you to explore the cocktail’s remarkable history in a new light in the bar and at home. (You’ll even bring home a few new recipes!)

Launched in 2010 the Mixing Star competition was launched with 650 bartenders from 9 countries competing for the ultimate prize of a being a bartender on the US TV show ‘How I Met Your Mother’.

Get your Bollywood on people

This year the comp is extending the entries to 10 different countries including, of course, the UK. Disaronno are looking for someone to conceive a cocktail that fully personifies the brands versatility and mixability as well as an ability to shine in front of the camera.

The prize itself is a corker with the UK winner flying out to Berlin in July to take on the winners from around the world. Take out the Berlin final and you will be flying to Mumbai, India for a tour of the most famous Bollywood film studios and play the role of ‘star bartender’ in a Bollywood production. On top of all of that you will be featured in an international cocktail guide, ‘Disaronno Hall of Fame 2012’.

To enter this awesome comp head to www.themixingstar.com to register your Disaronno signature cocktail. These cocktails will then be judged by a panel of experts and judged on balance of elements, creativity and originality.

The top cocktails creators will then be invited along to a regional casting, set up to resemble a real casting Bollywood movie set, where you will be expected to prepare your signature cocktail plus a classic Disaronno Sour.

Why the Dickens you are still reading this story is beyond me, get inventing and get entering – how many times in your life do you get the chance to be in a Bollywood production?

The sickening view from my hotel balcony

While it plopped and hissed, I slid open the balcony door and stepped out for the first time into Puerto Rican sunshine.

In front of me was a small, blue bay full of choppy waves, garnished with a perfectly formed rainbow.

A good omen for the first morning of a week-long trip? You betcha…

When I found out there was seat for me on the plane to San Juan with Bacardi Legacy Team UK, I was blown away. The opportunity to follow the competitors during a week of preparation for a big competition is a writer’s dream.

Instead of simply reporting on the results of a cocktail competition, this would be a chance to see how the team bonded, and to get to know them on a more personal level, which would inevitably make me more emotionally invested in the outcome of the contest.

I was wrong about this however. In the end, I realised that it wasn’t the winning drink or country that left an impression on me at all, or indeed how the UK faired. It was two blokes called Tony and Matteo.

This statement at best makes it sound like I developed a man crush, and at worst has Bacardi’s PR people clutching at their chests, so I best explain it pronto.

Day One…

Jose, the Maestro, describes the act of drinking rum.

After breakfast on the first day, Team UK gathered with the rest of the competitors, their ambassadors and a few international media types in the lobby of the Conrad Plaza hotel. We were being bussed to Bacardi’s distillery, the Cathedral of Rum.

As you would expect, the group actually consisted of 26 micro-groups as competitors gathered with people on their own team. Of course, this industry being what is, a few people knew each other from Tales of the Cocktail or international bar shows and said hello.

But the group wasn’t quite cohesive and this, coupled with an element of ‘sizing up the opposition’ and lack of sleep made for a quieter than usual flock of bartenders.

Everyone began to relax a little during the distillery tour. The combination of being on mutual home turf, so to speak, and enthusiasm for what they were seeing had cross-border conversations starting.

The distillery itself is impressive. Two massive wind turbines preside over a huge campus that dwarfs most other distilleries I’ve visited. The ‘Cathedral’ that once housed enormous column stills offers an incredible view over Cataño, which I think finally brought home to everyone that they were actually here and doing it after such a long period of anticipation.

Shev, May and a bat.

Inside, we met Joaquin Bacardi, who is as tanned and dapper as he sounds, and given the opportunity to ask him some questions. The first of which, “Will Bacardi go back to Cuba?” he answered with:

“There’s no way we will leave Puerto Rico. There is an opportunity for Bacardi in Cuba, but it is a small opportunity. I see a small operation in Cuba, to work on boutique rums.”

You heard it here first folks.

After this, we got stuck into some rum. Any shyness between competitors who didn’t know each other began to fall away, especially when they were presented with a unique bottle, blended by three generations of Bacardi Maestros to mark 150 years of family history.

It’s amazing stuff and if you are lucky enough to come across some, try it at once.

El Balcon

Team UK on El Balcon

The next few days were taken up with seminars, free time by the pool, rum, food and nights out (it’s this sort of sentence that makes my mum say, ‘yes but what is your actual job’).

Team UK, comprising of competitors Zdenek Kastanek (London), Hayden Scott Lambert (Belfast), Shervene Shahbazkhani (Bacardi UK brand ambassador), Metinee Kongsrivilai (UK finalist 2011) and Gary Moore (Boutique Creative) staged a number of sneak attacks on San Juan’s nightlife.

We found the World’s Best Bar in El Balcon, which afforded cold beer and a great people watching vantage point.

We also found a fantastic Salsa bar that afforded warm beer and embarrassing opportunities for dad dancing, although not in Shervene’s case because she’s got moves.

But most of all, the disparate parties from around the world slowly became one group, which, finally, brings me on to Tony and Matteo.

Happy shiny people...

If you searched the globe for two people as physically different as possible, you would come up with Tony and Matteo. The former is from Vietnam, is tall, thin and gangly. The latter is Italian and spends as much time in the gym as he does behind the bar; he wouldn’t look out of place in an aftershave commercial.

Tony speaks virtually no English, and Matteo isn’t really fluent either. And yet, without being able to properly communicate, they became best friends during the trip.

As the week wore on, and the group became more and more integrated, it turned into a bunch of friends on an adventure, as opposed to competitors trying to beat each other at all costs.

I overheard several people talking about this, trying to think of another industry or even a sport where it would be possible. No-one came up with one. And, as flowery as this might sound, sitting outside a bar one night in the middle of this amazing group of people, and with the Bacardi flowing, I realised I was having the time of my life.

The climax

Nerves awaiting the semi final results

Towards the end of the week, things got a bit more serious again as the semis and final loomed.

Of course, I would have loved to see Zdenek or Hayden bring the trophy home for the UK, but looking in from the outside, it became less and less important who ultimately won. I was probably alone in this however, especially when it was time for the 26 bartenders to step foot on the semi final stage.

The results were to be announced at a gala dinner later that night, which gave everyone several hours to stew on their performances, and you could see tension in a lot of faces.

At the dinner, everyone sat down expectantly, but Bacardi’s global ambassador, David Cordoba, dashed any hope of an imminent decision by announcing:

“Eat, drink, talk to your colleagues. Wait till your tummy is full. Because if we tell you the results now, you might say ‘I don’t want to eat’, so I want you to enjoy yourself and then we will do it. Don’t ask me now, I will tell you I don’t know.”

After what seemed like a year, the results were announced. Our boys made it through, but many others didn’t and it was moving to watch finalists congratulated by, and in turn commiserate with, those whose Legacy journey had ended.

The final, and with it our last night in Puerto Rico, rolled around all too quickly, and at the end of an epic week, the original groups were joined by more supporters and industry types from around the world. Everyone donned glad rags and congregated on the lawn of the Cathedral of Rum to watch the final eight.

Blue steel, with a little bit of homicidal maniac thrown in.

In the end, I think it is telling that the winner of the competition was only able to succeed because some of his opponents helped him.

Shingo Gokan, representing the USA but originally from Japan, became so emotional during the part of his presentation that mentioned his homeland’s recent troubles, he looked certain to run out of time and blow his chance.

But at the last minute, several competitors leapt on stage to help him clear away his kit within the time limit, and he went on to claim the Legacy prize. It was something to witness, given the stakes, and there were a lot of moist eyes in the audience.

From my point of view, looking in from the outside, this was in a way the best possible outcome. Having seen the group become so close, the fact that the winning effort was something of a collaborative one seemed fitting.

Legacy winner Shingo Gokan in the spotlight.

Whether they intended to or not, for the competitors at least, Bacardi created something in that Legacy competition week that completely encapsulates the bartending community: hospitality, camaraderie and going out of one’s way to make sure someone else has the best possible night.

In the same way that Tony and Matteo could strike up a friendship despite the lack of ability to communicate, the skills that make a bartender good at his or her job are universal. It’s no surprise that a group of 26 such individuals will form an amazing team that ends up working together, and that spending a week with them was one of the most rewarding and enjoyable things I’ve done.

Congratulations to Zdenek, Hayden, Shingo, Tony, Matteo and all of the other competitors on making it to the finals, and for collectively adding their part to the Bacardi Legacy.

Can you see yourself lounging here, sipping gin? You betchacan...

If ever there was a place that embodies the spirit of bartenders, it’s Ibiza. It has everything: Sun, sea, sand, amazing food and lots of ‘pretty ladies’ (said in an Alex Kratena accent).

And of course pretty boys for the female bartending community.

The Gin Mare Mediterranean Inspirations comp would like to take you to this magic island, with a view to representing the UK in the international final.

The competition asks you to create two drinks – one original cocktail inspired by Gin Mare’s botanicals, and also a Dirty Martini twist.

There will be four qualifying heats, with the winner of each flying to Ibiza in September. The four UK winners will then compete against each other to decide who will represent the UK at the international final, against some of Europe’s best bartenders, the following day.

The four regional heats will be as follows:

• Manchester: April 3^rd at the Boutique Bar Show.
• Leeds – May (date and location TBC)
• London – June (date and location TBC)
• Edinburgh – July (date and location TBC)

To enter, simply devise your recipes and enter them into the secure form below. If your drinks score you a place in the regional heats, you will be informed by telephone or email.