Drinks International

Laura Grassulini:  In our previous column, we interrogated ourselves on the status of cocktail competitions and on the future of on-trade advocacy. We’ve set value as the ultimate, collective benchmark, so the question naturally arises: what value is advocacy supposed to deliver, and is it delivering it?

The transparent blended spirit drink generated a lot of conversation in the whisky industry and master blender emeritus Sandy Hyslop got in touch to give his thoughts on the project. Our ambition was simple but demanding: to create a clear spirit that genuinely delivers on flavour. We wanted people to see the transparency, take a sip and be surprised by just how much character is there. But achieving that took time.

Danil Nevsky: No amount of googling or ChatGPT-ing has helped me find the first-ever cocktail competition, or at least one that was the first real game changer. So, I’m going to use my own bar industry experience to make the following claim: the golden era of cocktail competitions was 2008-2018. Anything before that can’t be remembered, and anything after is largely insignificant. But how did this once kingmaker for international bartending lose its relevance?

Mongolia is known as the Land of Horses due to the five million that roam its vast wilderness. But a lesser-known fact is that vodka is as deeply ingrained in the land and people as airag, the fermented mare’s milk that is considered the national drink.

In its autumn budget, the government outlined its plans for the duty hikes, stating that the increase to RPI is to “maintain its current real-terms value”. Adding that, “the government heard representations from stakeholders ranging from a duty cut or freeze to above inflation increases.

Earlier this year, Christine Sismondo (my fellow 50 Best Canadian Academy chair) and I informally polled dozens of top Canadian bartenders. We asked for their hot takes on global bar trends… and the responses were definitely not the polite, deferential Canadiana you might expect. Pre-batching drinks “to the point that you’re just pouring: it needs to stop!”. Back bars and anointing startenders “creates financial vulnerability by relying on brands”.

Another week. Another bar show. Another cocktail week. Another symposium. Another convention. Same startenders. Same seminars. Same topics. Same swag. Same brands. Same complaints. In 2021, I started an online bar event calendar. The idea was to have a simple, easy-to-access, synchronised-straight-to-your-smartphone calendar that everyone can use to plan their year. In 2021 we had 14 bar events around the world. In 2025 we have 68. Yet it doesn’t seem like the industry expanded by 400%.

The family behind Chase Gin has returned to its Herefordshire distillery only a few years after selling the operation to Diageo. This time, however, they’re leaving gin in the past and embracing a new spirit altogether: English single malt whisky. Named after the family farm in the agricultural heartland of Herefordshire, the launch of Rosemaund Farm Whisky marks Chase’s return to the world of spirits.

We all know making money in operations in the bar business is hard. Unless you’re in a multi-venue operations role or working for a five-star hotel, you’re usually bottom of the barrel when it comes to earnings. Ironically, the romance of the job is propped up by external brand trips more than your bar offering free staff pizza on Mondays.

The lager shandy evokes nostalgia for many pub goers. The lager-lemonade combo was once used to moderate beer, but it’s fallen out of favour since the growth of non-alcoholic brands. If you look at the wider non-alcoholic beer sector, it’s dominated by trademark brands replicating their successful lager, just without the alcohol. This strategy makes a lot of sense and is clearly working, but when it comes to innovation, I believe this comes from independent, craft producers.