On Sunday the House of Angostura hosted the Caribbean leg of their Global Cocktail Challenge 2024-2025. The event was held at the Harbor Club Saint Lucia.
The House of Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge, forms part of the company’s bicentenary celebration this year. The company says that this marks the beginning of a new dialogue with the bartending community as they search for the next generation of champions worldwide.
The theme for the Global Cocktail Challenge is “A journey through time…A celebration of 200 years of Angostura, bartending and classic cocktails”.
Bartenders were invited to create a swizzle cocktail, using Angostura premium rum and bitters. The competition was designed to test their creativity, innovation, bartending skills, and ability to perform under pressure.
On Sunday, five bartenders from the region took up the challenge.
They were Derek Blackman from the Bahamas, Dwayne Williams from Barbados, Eduard Balan from Anguilla, Ricardo Smikle-Jamaica and TJ Nathaniel – Antigua and Barbuda.
The bartenders had six minutes to prepare two cocktails each and present to a panel of three judges.
One of the cocktails had to be the competitors’ take on the Queen’s Park Swizzle and the other from a mystery basket, all with the use of products from the House of Angostura. Among the areas the judges were looking for was creativity, taste, storyline and sustainability.
Guests were also invited to sample the cocktails during the event. The afternoon was an interactive one with bartenders, guests, judges and Angostura representatives as well as the representatives from Lazy Lagoon the local distributors of Angostura products.
In the end, after the tallying of the judge’s scores, coming in third was Dwayne Williams of Barbados, 2nd Ricardo Smikle of Jamaica and the winner Eduard Balan of Anguilla.
Balan who is the Managing Director at the Savi Beach Club in Anguilla said that it was a pleasure representing an iconic brand such as Angostura and is looking forward to the grand event in Trinidad.
Balan will travel to Trinidad next year to participate in the grand House of Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge, which will see participation from bartenders from across the globe.
On Sunday, the House of Angostura, world renowned for its bitters’ production, highlighted the release of the Angostura 200-Year Anniversary Limited-Edition bitters.
Sunday’s winner received one of the 120,000 bottles manufactured in its limited edition packaging as part of his prize.
