Competition

There are cocktail competitions and then there is the G’Vine Gin Connoisseur Program. Most cocktail / bartending competitions are relatively simple affairs that pit one cocktail against another with the winner having the best cocktail of the moment. Sometimes it’s as much luck as it is the whims of the judging panel. The G’Vine program is very different and the final… [Continue]

Very interesting things happen when you take a group of bartenders, mix in some of the best spirits and cocktails in the world and then stick them in a hotel together. And I'm glad I waited until the morning to right this post because we've got some killer material. Whenever an Australian does a striptease to Waltzing Matilda, on boat, you know it's going to be one of "those"… [Continue]

After an exhausting 3 days of challenges, drinking, traveling and assorted other activities the winner of the G'Vine Connoisseur Competition was Stephan Hinz from Germany (Shephard Bar in Cologne). Really, this wasn't an easy victory. Any one of the twelve bartenders could have challenged for the top position, but circumstances, preparedness and the ability to know when to… [Continue]

Bartending competition results can never tell the whole story, nor do they reflect the true strengths of each competitor. However, numbered rankings often seem harsh, especially to those who didn't come in first. Like those old "No Fear" t-shirts from the 1990s that claimed "second place is the first loser", numbers are merciless. So for a little more balance, and a little humour,… [Continue]

And here are the final bartender summaries for the top six competitors. Sometimes circumstances have an interesting effect on the final positions in any competition. There is no doubt that things like jet-lag, smoke inhalation and the sniffles can make or break a competitor. But, the top competitors always find a way to rise above these things and still give outstanding performances.

After the successful first edition of the Gin Connoisseurs Program (GCP) in 2010, G’Vine has started looking for the top gin bartender for 2011. This year G’Vine is looking for fifteen bartenders to compete. The top two bartenders from each of the following countries (Canada, Germany, Spain, the UK and the US) along with five “wildcard” bartenders from anywhere in the world… [Continue]