Helsinki Cocktail Competition 2016

Last Autumn I received a phone call from Mika Koivula, one of the guys behind Son Of A Punch. He wanted to pitch me an idea of a whole new type of cocktail competition that had never been done in Finland before. The plan was to create a signature cocktail for our capital, Helsinki. But that’s not all. Instead of choosing one distributor to sponsor the event SOAP had decided that any alcohol company that wanted to participate could do that and choose a list of their products that could be used during the competition. At this point I’m very happy to say that seven big distributors got into an agreement to work together instead of competing against each other. I’d say that was the first awesome thing. Someone could also say that history was made.

The rules were simple. Basically any bar or restaurant in Helsinki could participate and do their best to be the one who created the first Helsinki cocktail in history. If a bar decided to take part for the competition they also signed to sell the winning cocktail for entire summer of 2016.

So, on the 5^th of April a big crowd of people mixed with bartenders, brand ambassadors, sales reps, marketing people, media and of course people outside the industry gathered to restaurant Teatteri in the central of Helsinki to see which of the eleven participating bars would take the title home for the first time in history.

The competition had 10 judges. One from each distributor sponsoring the event, a journalist from the biggest Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, a famous lifestyle blogger and last but not least the mayor of Helsinki. I don’t think that I’m wrong if I say Helsinki Cocktail Competition had quite a colorful jury built with different kind of people who had one common thing: love for the cocktail culture.