mojitoThose of you who fol­low us on Twit­ter might have noticed a reoc­cur­ing hash tag yes­ter­day of “cockchamp”.

This was, of course, us report­ing live and on the sport from the New Zea­l­and heat of the Havana Club Cock­tail Grand Prix held at Betty’s. Ten of the best bar­tenders from around the coun­try battled it out for the chance to rep­res­ent NZ at the world wide finale in Havana next May.

You may already know that Clare Har­lick from the Mat­ter­horn won, but what went on at the com­pet­i­tion and at the VIP after-party? Read on!

One of the few pos­it­ives about being made redund­ant (that’s right folks, I’m avail­able for hire!) is that when really dif­fi­cult Wel­ling­tonista assign­ments like hav­ing to drink moji­tos at 1pm in the after­noon come along, I am able to man up and take one for the team. I also took along Kim as my offi­cial pho­to­graph­er. She said she was unfa­mil­i­ar with gonzo journ­al­ism, so as the first tray of Dark & Stormies (Havana Club with ginger beer, lime and bit­ters) came around, I decided it was high time to teach her. That pro­cess was a little hindered when the next tray of drinks was dropped before I got my second, but soon enough I had an amaz­ing mojito with which to drown my sor­rows, and the com­pet­i­tion began in earn­est! While we shook our minature maracas and images of Cuba were pro­jec­ted across the walls, each bar­tender had ten minutes to make three cock­tails fea­tur­ing Havana Club rums, of course, and present them to the judging pan­el of Rex Mor­gan, from the Boul­cott Street Bis­tro, Riki Carter, reign­ing Havana Club Cock­tail Grand Prix NZ win­ner 2007 and Mix­o­lo­gist – Chris Harrop, New Zea­l­and Bar­tender of the year 2008.

First up was Dick­ie Cul­limore from E Stu­di­os in Chch . He tried to win us over by com­pli­ment­ing the weath­er in Wel­ling­ton but really, he need­n’t have bothered giv­en that his entries con­sisted of a Smoked Cedar Daquiri, a Pink Squir­rel Sour and a Rum & Rais­in Re-Fash­ioned, all of which soun­ded divine.

Homet­own favour­ite Jonny Mck­en­zie for Hawthorn was up next, pour­ing out frozen cham­pange for the judges (and get­ting in the first of many obvi­ous product place­ment shout-outs to Per­nod-Ricard) to freshen up their pal­ates. While he was crush­ing up char­grilled pine­apple with cajun spices, he told a story about los­ing his job at El Floriditas in Havana for refus­ing to blend daquiris (I can­’t prom­ise you that’s actu­ally true though) and said he was going to make up for it by blend­ing his drink today. With the clock tick­ing down and the blender motor whirr­ing but not grind­ing, we were on the edge of our seats like we were at a Richter City match as he moved to shake instead. Still, his mix of rum and chocol­ate and coconut liquer topped up with Tuatara Port­er was prob­ably my favour­ite cock­tail that I got to try a minute amount of on the day.

I wondered if Ben Simpson from Motel would be able to make three drinks in ten minutes because I’ve always had unbe­lievelably slow ser­vice there, but he seemed to be on fine form, mix­ing straw­ber­ries, bal­sam­ic vin­eg­ar and basil with sev­en-year-old rum. Kim, Laura and I giggled like school­girls at the squelchy sounds of the straw­ber­ries being poun­ded in the shaker, partly because of the moji­tos and partly because of our use of #cockchamp for twit­ter­ing updates, but mostly because it turns out that bar­tenders are even more filthy-minded than I am. We appre­ci­ated what he was going for with his attempt at recre­at­ing a mojito made with fresh sug­ar cane juice using lem­on­grass instead, but because that was just a straw­ful to taste, I think that the reg­u­lar Moji­tos that the Betty’s staff brought around with quite pep­pery mint were the real win­ners. Yes, I some­times go for quant­ity over qual­ity. So shoot me.

When Jason Clarke from De Bajo in Queen­stown stepped up, we were informed that his moth­er was in the audi­ence about to see him make cock­tails for the first time. He told us that he’d lit­er­ally give his left nut to get to go to Cuba, and it was sug­ges­ted that he gar­nish his drinks with it. I hope his moth­er was proud of him as he told us that he makes pina col­a­das for young girls who then turn to putty in his hands. Appar­ently the secret ingredi­ent isn’t actu­ally rohyp­n­ol, it’s a homemade white chocol­ate vodka. He also makes his own gren­ad­ine, which seems to me to be going above and bey­ond the call of duty. His pina col­ada looked amaz­ing, fluffed up through a can­is­ter and served in an old-fash­ioned milk bottle topped up with ginger beer.

James Gog­gin from Rack­et in Auck­land had an Irish accent so he was quick to tell us that he has not been moles­ted by a priest. He had, how­ever, appar­ently moles­ted the MC into car­ry­ing a red ice egg in his ass across the coun­try. His drinks were heavy on the bit­ters and were the most alco­holy-tast­ing of the ses­sion. James had also man­aged to find some­thing he called Ninja Mint, which looked like ecualyptus and smelled like mint crossed with basil. It made me hungry for Thai food. Luck­ily we had bread and dips by that stage, although they were eaten almost as quickly as we drank our moji­tos.

Next up we had anoth­er loc­al, Calem Chad­wick from the Mat­ter­horn. He spoke about Ern­est Hem­ming­way, and made us hungy with his cin­na­mon smoke that waf­ted through the bar. His present­a­tion was impress­ive, but he ran out of time. The Masked Bar­fly was amused to hear that appar­ently it’s very hard to use nitrous foamers at the’ho cos the staff keep inhal­ing them all. Who knew?

Although appar­ently the bar­tenders were sup­posed to stay away from polit­ic­al state­ments, Tim Miller from Mea Culpa in Auck­land still named his first drink Raoul’s Folly. It was delight­fully savoury with fresh thyme and pep­per­dews poun­ded up with a little chocol­ate and chilli.

Charles Gil­let from Toast in Christ­ch­urch was cer­tainly not the tallest bar­tender in the com­pet­i­tion, which he emphas­ised at the end of the time by stand­ing on a Havana Club box to fin­ish off his drinks. His self depra­ca­tion con­tin­ued with his Bro-jito, in which he muddled water­mel­on & water­cress, topped it up with L&P, gar­nished it with toast in the shape of a pig’s head in order to push the Boil-Up theme and threatened it with a can of Tui – yeah right!

I asked Sally from Mighty Mighty if she was com­pet­ing, but she was just along to sup­port all the oth­er hos­pit­al­ity people. The only female in the com­pet­i­tion was Claire Har­lick also from the Mat­ter­horn. She riffed on the Mary Pick­ford, which use“a shitoad of rum & a shit­load of sug­ar”. She was nervous, but still cap­ably poured flam­ing rum from jug to jug, focus­ing more on being very pro­fes­sion­al and mak­ing good drinks rather than enter­tain­ing the crowd.

The last com­pet­i­ti­or was in very strong con­strast. Kyle from Havana Bar had been in trans­it for 36 hours after los­ing his lug­gage in Mex­ico on the way back from Cuba. He did­n’t let that stop him, as he flour­ished a mega­phone, sauteed a cigar in a pan of rum to get it smokey, and popped a great num­ber of cher­ries with his little prick before he brought in the big wood. The hil­ari­ous smut bubbled over into his shak­ing tech­nique – “Some people like to use their sex face when they shake. I like to use my detect­ive face like I’m look­ing for clues. Which is also my sex face, as it hap­pens”. As the orange flower water slopped around, he acknow­ledged that he was­n’t going to win. But he cer­tainly seemed to be hav­ing a good time as he did it, as we were watch­ing.

The com­pet­i­tion was sup­posed to run from 1–4pm, but it was 5.30 when we tumbled out into the street for the break before the VIP Awards night. We returned to Betty’s at 7pm for more Havana Club-based drinks and amaaaaaaaaaaaaz­ing fin­ger food – tuna tartare spoons, duck roul­ande, tomato tarts. Oh, and for the res­ults, of course. Claire took out the top prize, while Tim came in second, mean­ing he also gets to go along to Havana to be a rum cady. Every­one was in top spir­its, and it seemed to be some­what of a love-in. Jonny in par­tic­u­lar cemen­ted his TAWA nom­in­a­tions for best ser­vice by ensur­ing that we always had drinks, even though it was­n’t even his bar. The Masked Bar­fly observed how it was kind of awe­some to be more sober than the bar­tenders for once. In fact, it was all very awe­some. Won­der­ful drinks were made, won­der­ful times were had, and The’Ho once again takes its place on the world stage of hos­pit­al­ity. Thanks Havana Club!