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The Savoy’s Tom Walker wins Bacardi Legacy
Tom Walker, bartender at The American Bar at The Savoy in London, has been crowned winner of the Bacardi Legacy Global Cocktail Competition 2014.
The UK’s Tom Walker has been announced winner of the Bacardi Legacy Global Cocktail Competition 2014
During a close final held at the Petrovsky Palace, in Moscow, Walker beat off competition from 26 international finalists, impressing a panel of judges with his Maid in Cuba cocktail.
In partnership with Bacardi, Walker will now serve his winning cocktail – a mix of Bacardi Superior rum, fresh mint and cucumber with sweet and sour mix topped with soda and absinthe spritz – at some of the finest bars around the world.
“The Maid in Cuba embodies what we look for in a legacy cocktail,” said David Cordoba, Bacardi global ambassador. “It achieves the perfect mix of the perfect ingredients, offering a balance and flavour and simplicity that I believe will endure and make it a classic of the future.
“The competition this year has been the highest standard ever and we have been blown away by the talent of the bartenders and the quality of their cocktails. It was incredibly close, but Tom is a worthy winner.”
During the week-long final, 27 bartenders from across the world took part in educational workshops before presenting their own original interpretation of a modern Bacardi Legacy cocktail in the competition.
Judges selected two runners up in the competition – Australian Fred Siggins’ Empire of Dreams and Carson Xie from China’s Original Connection – yet selected Walker’s Maid in Cuba as the winner due to its “light and refreshing appeal”.
“It’s actually quite overwhelming to win this competition, because I have been working towards it for such a long time,” said Walker.
“Winning Bacardi Legacy gives me an unbelievable opportunity to place my original cocktail on a global stage and develop my bartending career.”
On the judging panel sat Maestro de Ron Bacardi José Sanchez Gavito; bartender Joerg Meyer, who owns the world famous bar Le Lion in Hamburg; global rum ambassador Ian Burrell and 2013 winner of the Bacardi Legacy Global Cocktail Competition, Elizaveta Evdokimova.
Founded in 2008, the Bacardi Legacy Global Cocktail Competition aims to “uncover a new generation of cocktails to endure to become the classics of the future”.