BACARDI LEGACY COCKTAIL FINALS – ALLY MARTIN

Being blown away by Moscow, inventing a cocktail with peas, and mixing drinks to hip-hop… Bacardi Legacy cocktail competition finalist Ally Martin gives us an insight into his cocktail world.

The Bacardi Legacy competition interested me because it’s about so much more than just making a cocktail. It requires you to create a level of awareness; to build brand around the drink; to generate hype and buzz. It’s been an invaluable experience. After all, the best way to learn is to be thrown in at the deep end, I suppose!

There’s a lot of strategizing that goes into the whole thing. You often don’t see a great deal from the competitors over the first couple of weeks because of the sheer levels of organisation that goes into it all. Going into the UK final you have to present your marketing campaign and it forms part of the basis of your marking criteria for making it to the ‘Three Most Promising.’ Luckily there’s a lot of support too. Shev and May from Bacardi help you to rework what you’ve done and improve it. They’re also on hand to help you chill out in case of a life crisis. 

The challenge is to create a drink that will stand the test of time. Mine is based on the Old Cuban, which was the first modern rum classic. The thing that inspired me about the drink was what it stands for and the period of time it represents. I wanted to do a twist on the modern classic because I believe in order to move our industry forward we need to constantly look to push things in different directions and to try to take things to a new level. To do this I manipulated two elements in the drink: the wine and mint. I substituted the mint with dill as it has a high level of complexity and wonderful fresh, green notes. And in place of wine, I added sherry to give it a different spin.

The bartending world is a completely different place now than it was back in 2002, when the Old Cuban was invented. It’s because of people like Audrey Saunders and so many trailblazers from around that time that we are in the position we are today. The wealth of ingredients, the variety of spirits and the range of techniques that we have at our disposal came about as a result of bartenders from that era and in the years that followed seeking to push our industry on to new heights and to take it to new levels. Saying that, I did spend about two months last year trying to make a drink with batter, peas and champagne, which was a continual disaster.

Innovation comes in many forms. For me creating a drink that will stand the test of time and will be replicable and well known all over the world requires a high level of innovation. Working with Matt Whiley at Peg + Patriot, I’ve learnt a lot of techniques, but for me the most important thing I’ve learnt from him is that in order to progress the onus is on you to read.  Reading is the key to progression in this industry.

Moscow blew me away.  Over in London you can sometimes get a little stuck in your own head, and bartenders over here sometimes don’t look outside their own city enough.  When I went over there I expected the bars to be good and the cocktail culture to be pretty advanced.  What I saw were some bars that blew the majority of London out of the water.

I’ve always been a fan of venues with concise cocktail lists, which change fairly regularly. That said you should always be encouraged, and have the ability, to go off menu. My passions lie in trying to do small, exciting things that give customers a different, more thrilling experience that they wouldn’t find anywhere else. I’d also like to give people an interesting and varied spirit choice – and I’d like to do all of that to some awesome hip-hop vibes.

The Finals of the Bacardi Legacy Cocktail competition takes place in May in Sydney, and more details can be found here or by following @bacardilegacy