The Diageo World Class Cocktail Competition Winner Has Been Crowned

This week the crème de la crème of New Zealand's bartenders battled it out for the chance to represent us at the World Class 2015 world final in Cape Town, South Africa. Each competitor served up a cocktail of their own design, inspired by their own personal journey. The results were as delicious as they were impressive.

Mexico bartender Bill Scott served us his Fruits of Labour cocktail, a well balanced, light, dry and zesty cocktail along with some soft and juicy slow roast grapes. The flavours of sweet vermouth, lemon, chocolate mole bitters and reduced grapefruit jive along with the light texture of egg white made this endlessly drinkable - it is the kind of cocktail that great nights are made from.

Alisan Kwan, bartender at 1885 Basement started out with a sweet, tangy and wonderfully chewy meringue to prep our pallets. She then served up her Finish Strong, a tart hot toddy cocktail which was a sharp contrast with the sweetness that preceded it. This cocktail was garnished with chunks of almond, giving it a dynamic texture and flavour.

From Roxy in Wellington, Ray Letoa shared with us The Ray Way, a wicked and downright artful dessert cocktail. This little beauty consisted of three parts that came deconstructed and balanced on a tile; Whittakers dark chocolate and whiskey ganache, warm milk whiskey punch, and a homemade coffee powder. The milk punch constitutes a great drink on its own, with a sweet, sharp and creamy flavor, and the ganache could easily have made the basis for a mind-blowing dessert. However, mixed together these ingredients made a cocktail greater than the sum of its parts, the perfect balance of rich, deep chocolate with spicy whiskey and a smooth, full texture.

Lorietta Bahr of Auckland's newly established Matterhorn served up the delightful Lady of Journey. This cocktail - made with Lemon, Johnnie Walker Platinum, spice-infused clarified milk and egg white - had a sweet, citrus, creamy and pudding-like taste. In the process of clarifying the milk Lorietta separated the milk solids and turned them into a wonderful spice-infused ricotta, which she served to us on crackers alongside the cocktails. Yum.

The winner on the day was Phillip Spector with the aptly named Golden Ticket. This cocktail was devilishly rich, featuring spiced butter syrup, Pecan Maple syrup and Apricot conserve, which all blended beautifully with the Johnnie Walker Gold Label. The result was a cocktail that was smooth, thick and well rounded but not too sweet. Along with the bitter piece of dark chocolate that it was served with, this one was a wonderfully decadent experience - just as any great cocktail should be.