Sometimes events are so big that it’s actually really hard to write about them concisely whilst giving all of the important details. The World Class Global Final (aka The Liquid Oscars) is an event such as this.

So here are the key facts:

18 bartenders from 18 countries compete for the title of World’s best bartender.

The competition is held over three days, with groups of competitors rotating between six different competitions designed to test the bartenders skillset.

The greatest panel of drink judges ever has been assembled – Gary Regan, Simon Difford, Dale DeGroff, Peter Dorelli, Salvatore Calabrese, Hidetsugo Ueno and Marco-Pierre White (You can check out some of them at work on the Magnificent Seven video, which I tweeted about a while back).

The winner will not only earn significant kudos, but will also get the chance to publish their own cocktail book.

My involvement with the competition was fairly minimal. This meant that I had the awesome opportunity to tour around all of the East London locations in which the individual competitions were being held.

Peter Dorelli was judging the cocktail presentation theatre round in very nearly hidden ‘Bath House‘, close to Liverpool Street station. This round required the competitors to make Peter two drinks, one is to be served to him at the bar and the other served to the table. I’m not sure exactly how the score sheet was broken down, but the idea was that the bartender was judged as much on their service skills and conversation, as they were on the flavour of the drink.

Next, over at the East Rooms in Shoreditch we saw Dale DeGroff judging the taste and speed round. Alas, I turned up just after midday, so got to enjoy lunch with Dale rather than seeing any competition. Dale challenged each competitor to make him five different drinks as quickly as possible. The drinks included a Negroni, Cosmpolitan, Old Fashioned, Margarita and Whisky based drinks. Not easy to do efficiently and precisely. There’s a good video on the DAY 2 section of the world class website, which displays it better than words can describe.

Accompanied by (TV’s) Andy Pearson, I next headed over to Callooh Callay to see Gary Regan judging Cocktail Mastery. This round really could be an entire competition unto itself, including a twenty minute chat from Gary, a twenty minute exam, sensory testing that involved identifying various different aromas, and then the mixing of two different drinks (classic and original) in front of Gary. Phew!

Finally myself and Andy, with new recruit Tom Aske, headed over to Lounge Lover to witness the Cocktail and Canape matching round, judged by the formidable Salvatore Calabrese. Each competitor was given a selection of canapes to choose from, then tasked with creating tasty drinks to match two of them. Though completely terrifying, Salvatore took time to sit down with each competitor and talk through his thoughts on the match. It was refreshing to see the competitors get instant feedback on their endeavors.

Unfortunately I didn’t get time to visit the other two competitions, Simon Difford Judging Classic cocktails pulled out of a hat over at his Cabinet Room. And Ueno San judging a market challenge round where competitors were given a purchasing budget and asked to create drinks from whatever they were able to procure.

The final day of competition ended with a huge gathering in the Masonic Temple at the Andaz Hotel near Liverpool Street. Hosted by Marco Pierre White, the winner of each round was announced by the judge and then the grand winner of everything and World Class Global winner for 2009.

I don’t think that anyone can come into a competition like this and expect to do well, never mind win! Of course I was rooting for Ryan Chetiyawardana, the UK entrant. First each judge announced the winners of their respective round, the results follow…

Speed and Taste – Rustambek Narzibekhov (Russia)
Canape Matching – Felix Hartmann (United Arab Emirates)
Cocktail Mastery – Noach Van Damme (Belgium)
Classic Cockatils – Khi Leonard (Cayman Islands)
Theatre – Mari Kamata (Japan)
Market Challenge – Ryan Chetiyawardana (UK)

The overall winner and World Class champion for 2009 is…

Aristotelis Papadopoulos from Banquet in Thessaloniki, Greece

[If someone could direct me to a picture of Aristotelis that would be awesome!]

I did meet Aristotelis briefly when he was competing in the canape matching round, congratulations to him, I’m sure we will be hearing a lot about him in the coming year.

So that’s it for this years final, great to catch up with everyone and make some new friends. Be sure to check out the World Class website, which has loads of interviews with judges, competitors and other important people.

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