Jack Hawkins; Courtesy of Diageo Australia. The stage lights burned into my eyes as a crowd of more than 100 focused intently on my every move, the heat causing sweat to bead on my temples. Above me, the vaulted ceilings of Petroff Palace, built by Catherine the Great, looked like the inside of a giant Fabergé egg. Everything was noise and light and heat. And then someone said, “Your time starts … now.”
It was 2014 and I was working as a bartender at Melbourne’s cocktail stalwart The Black Pearl. I had entered the Bacardi Legacy cocktail competition, never imagining it would lead me to a palace in Moscow. At the time, Australians were still getting used to cocktails as part of our drinking culture. A major driver of that uptake was competitions organised by spirits brands, which challenge bartenders to create original cocktails. As an aside, these are not the same as “flair” competitions, in which bartenders juggle bottles and set things on fire. Cocktail competitions are about the drink and the story behind it.
For competitors, these contests offer glamour and glory; the dream of the globetrotting celebrity bartender, known far and wide for their creativity and charisma. Prizes for the bigger competitions can be extravagant — around-the-world trips; thousands of dollars — but more important are the career opportunities they provide in a profession where upward mobility is often elusive. In the cocktail world, many folks with the “good” jobs, meaning executives, brand ambassadors and successful bar operators, earned their stripes in the crucible of competitive bartending.
Diageo’s World Class is perhaps the biggest and most prestigious of these competitions, and has launched hundreds of careers into the stratosphere. “A competition like Diageo World Class opens countless doors for bartenders,” says Kate McGraw, head of advocacy for Diageo Australia. “For the person who wins each year, their entire life shifts. They are given the title of ‘Australia’s Best Bartender’ and the work opportunities start the minute they put the trophy down.”
As well as delivering career advancement for bartenders, cocktail competitions have a big influence on the broader drinking culture. “Competitions like Diageo World Class are designed to push people,” McGraw says. “Creatively, technically and conceptually. These bartenders are trying to stand out, and they do that by using new ingredients and making technical innovations,” which trickle down into the drinks on offer at cocktail bars.
Back in 2014, after impressing the judges at the local level, I went on to compete at the national heat in Sydney against four other finalists, and won. The next step was Moscow to compete in the global finals against 26 other bartenders from around the world. It’s strange to think now, given the geopolitical situation, that in 2014 Moscow was a totally legitimate place to bring an international group of bartenders. We were treated like royalty, eating and drinking and staying at the city’s best venues. I ran around Red Square and mugged for Instagram in front of the candy-striped domes of St Basil’s, all because I had made a cocktail that people liked. It seemed absurd. It was absurd.
The morning of the global final, I woke up to spring snow falling silently over the rooftops of the city and a deep calm despite the challenge ahead. When my time started on that stage, surrounded by the beauty of 18th-century Russian imperial architecture, everything went quiet. I’m told I did a good job. I don’t remember. Adrenaline, I guess. In the end, I came second, always a hard pill to swallow, but I was proud. I had experienced the pressure and exhilaration of competing at the highest level, and it was a blast. And every once in a while, somewhere in the world, someone still orders my cocktail.
