Desi Daru reveals 2025 Culture Colliders finalists
British-Indian vodka brand Desi Daru has unveiled the top 10 finalists of its second annual cocktail competition, Culture Colliders.
The 10 finalists will go head to head on 17 November at the Churchill Bar and Terrace in London. At the end of the night, one of them will be crowned as the Desi Daru Culture Collider Champion 2025.
The winner will receive £2,500 (US$3,280) in cash, a meal for two at a Michelin-starred restaurant, a trip to the Desi Daru distillery, and the Culture Collider trophy.
The 2025 finalists are Alessandro Todini from Three Sheets; Alexandra Gomori Carrillo from Samba Room; Alice Ford from Nine Lives; Carlos Garcia Picon from Bar Antoine at Four Seasons Park Lane; Chloe Southam from The Royal Cocktail Exchange; Milo Cooper from The Domino Club; Petru Ivan from Nightjar Shoreditch; Piyush Gouchwal from The Cinnamon Collection; Stephen Bond from Habibi; and Subash Rai from Melting Pot.
For its second year, the Culture Collider cocktail competition invited bartenders in the UK to create a unique Desi Daru cocktail.
Each entry was required to incorporate one traditional Indian ingredient and one ingredient inspired by their hometown or Britain, along with 40ml of Desi Daru Alphonso Mango Vodka.
The vodka blends Indian and British elements, reflecting the heritage of the B Corp-certified brand’s owners, Mohit Singh and Aneet Kaur, who are both British-born Indians. This year, they aimed to encourage bartenders to share their own stories through their creations.
Raising the bar
“We had such a strong first year with Culture Colliders that we weren’t sure if the bar could be raised, but wow, bartenders took it to another level this year. We’ve had to increase the number of finalists from eight to 10 to account for the level of talent,” said Singh.
“We have given bartenders the opportunity to share a cocktail that blends our Indian heritage with their own culture, and we have been so moved by the deeply personal entries and how this has been expressed through mixology. It was extremely hard to choose just 10 finalists, and we want to extend our deepest thanks to everyone who took the time to enter and share their own interpretation. I can’t wait for the final to see who takes the win.”
The initial submissions were evaluated through a blind judging process based on the cocktail’s presentation, taste, and inspiration.
During the final, the 10 selected bartenders will have the opportunity to showcase their cocktails to a panel of esteemed judges.
The judging panel includes Melita Kiely, editor-in-chief of The Spirits Business; Kaur, co-founder of Desi Daru; Sukhinder Singh, co-founder of Speciality Drinks and The Whisky Exchange, and the founder of Elixir Distillers; and Vitor Sousa, the 2024 Culture Collider Champion.
Earlier this week, Desi Daru Alphonso Mango Vodka made its supermarket debut at 140 Waitrose locations in the UK.
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