Kali­fa Clyne

With mix­ing in­gre­di­ents such as geera, shrimp, sweet pep­pers and pi­men­tos, An­gos­tu­ra's Mix­mas­ter Chal­lenge Fi­nals on Thurs­day could eas­i­ly have been mis­tak­en for an Iron Chef com­pe­ti­tion. Even the pres­ence of a skil­let and coun­ter­top stove added to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion. The com­pe­ti­tion, which be­gan im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the com­pa­ny's Rum Fes­ti­val open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, was as en­ter­tain­ing as it was nerve-wrack­ing. Each com­peti­tor was giv­en sev­en min­utes in which to cre­ate two orig­i­nal drinks, a freestyle cock­tail and a rum cock­tail. The most im­por­tant recipe seemed to be An­gos­tu­ra's world fa­mous bit­ters with each recipe in­clud­ing five dash­es of the prod­uct.

Eight fi­nal­ists squared off to im­press the judges who in­clud­ed An­gos­tu­ra Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er Giselle Laronde-West, Ho­tel As­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tive, John­ny Kanor-Dou­bli­er, Clay­ton Archer and Deb­o­rah Sar­di­na-Metivi­er. The fi­nal­ists were Ty­rone Ben­jamin, Keisha An­toine, Kester Blake, Car­la Cu­pid, Sade Ce­les­tine, Daniyel Jones, Abi­o­la Jules and Kendelle Cre­pin. Com­peti­tors im­pressed judges and on­look­ers with orig­i­nal and tasty mix­es as well as cre­ative and eye-catch­ing pre­sen­ta­tion and tech­nique, in­clud­ing a dry ice pre­sen­ta­tion by Ce­les­tine, sev­er­al in­ven­tive gar­nish de­signs as well as what host Alex Thomas de­scribed as a "gy­rat­ing method of drink shak­ing" by Keisha An­toine.

The trend seemed to in­clude us­ing cook­ing in­gre­di­ents to flavour drink con­coc­tions with com­peti­tors us­ing sea­son­ing herbs, pep­pers, egg whites, and cu­cum­ber as part of their recipes. None were as am­bi­tious as bar­tend­ing gold medal­ist Daniyel Jones who rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Taste of the Caribbean com­pe­ti­tion in Mi­a­mi in June and at An­gos­tu­ra's Glob­al Cock­tail Chal­lenge in Au­gust. Jones had pre­vi­ous­ly won gold medals for the Most Cre­ative Drink, Most Cre­ative Rum Drink and Most Cre­ative Vod­ka Drink. Jones con­coc­tion, Doux Doux Dar­ling in­clud­ed both cu­cum­bers and five shrimp as in­gre­di­ents and he ac­tu­al­ly cooked the shrimp in wine in front of the judges and au­di­ence.

As in­no­v­a­tive as Doux Doux Dar­ling seemed, how­ev­er, it could not com­pare in terms of taste and over­all pre­sen­ta­tion to the drink cre­at­ed by the win­ning bar­tender Car­la Cu­pid. Cu­pid's Bazodee was def­i­nite­ly mem­o­rable, the scent of geera filled the bar area as it was mixed with shadon beni leaves and gua­va then gar­nished with gua­va flow­ers and lime skin. The sweet scent of the gua­va gar­nished in­fused with the sweet yet savoury taste of the drink made for a de­li­cious mix. Cu­pid, who won a first place prize of $10,000 rep­re­sent­ed the Kapok Ho­tel. Plac­ing sec­ond and third re­spec­tive­ly were Abi­o­la Jules and Keisha An­toine. Cu­pid will rep­re­sent T&T at next year's Glob­al Cock­tail Chal­lenge.