Judge Not...

On Monday I helped judge Rye's roughly-monthly cocktail creation competition, a task for which I'm wholly unqualified. These competitions are sponsored by a spirit brand, in this case Maker's Mark, and all entrants had to make a drink with that as its base ingredient. A whopping 14 bartenders entered the competition, and myself, Marcia from Tablehopper, and Rob from Martini House had to choose the top three drinks. The bartenders in the competition included people from Absinthe, Bourbon & Branch, Forbidden Island, and Elixir, so despite it being a fun night of talking about drinks, we all felt some pressure. (It would be one thing if we were drink experts, but Marcia and I are just people who go out and drink a lot. ) Anyway, we pretty closely agreed on our top 5 or 6 cocktails, but choosing the top three was rough. We each had strong feelings about one drink or another, and had to find compromises to pick the winners. Later that night, I got an email from someone who was there watching from the other side of the bar (we did not get to see who made the drinks or how- we were just told their ingredients and names) who politely questioned what the hell we were thinking with our list of winners. And while I was able to explain our choices and why we made them (and what we'd have changed to make each of them better), it was interesting to learn that our selections were not at all the consensus choice of the rest of the bar. On the other hand, the rest of the bar was all bartenders, and do drinkers want a bunch of bartenders choosing their drinks for them? Umm, yes. Note to Rye: Next time get real judges. I can't take the heat.