Sandymount's Cocktail Competition: A Tasty Drink, A Big Learning Curve and another Competition Winner
Sandymount Distillery ran their first cocktail competition recently and Talulah's Hollie Wright took out the nod. We grabbed a chat with Richard Wilson to learn about the competition.
At the time of print, there are 7 cocktail competitions in the New Zealand market and I’ve been completely transparent with aspiring contenders - you’ve got to pick and choose the competitions you enter, to ensure you and the brands get the most out of it. Cocktail competitions are 100% a two-way collaborative endeavour and whether you’re creating or competing in a competition, it pays to remember that!
Brands are looking for consumer activity, social amplification, strong brand knowledge behind the bar that transcends to consumer awareness and engagement (sales!) and competitors… well, you should be looking for a creative flex, opportunity to connect and learn with/from your peers and to elevate your own reputation. And consumers should get the benefit of exciting creations behind and across the bar.
But first - the drink: Hollie Wright’s ‘ℝ𝕙𝕖𝕦𝕞 𝔽𝕠𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕥’🌳🍂
-45ml @sandymountdistillery Te Kouka Forest Gin
-20ml Lemon juice
-10ml Briotett Rhubarb liqueur
-15ml Homemade rhubarb, ginger & rosemary sugar syrup
Garnish: Candied rhubarb ribbon
Ice: Ball
Glass: Short Rocks Glass
”For the syrup, I combined slices of rhubarb, ginger, rosemary sprigs and caster sugar into a pan and let is simmer for 10 minutes, I then let it cool down and after strained it into a bottle and let the syrup sit for 2 days.
Once the syrup was ready, I added this and the other ingredients to make my cocktail batch which I then clarified. I strained the cocktail through a coffee strainer & blue cloth 3 times with a 1:4 ratio of milk to get it as clear as possible.
For the garnish, I soaked rhubarb in sugar syrup for 10 minutes, after I wrapped the rhubarb around thin bamboo skewers and let them bake for 30 mins on 100 degrees, once cooled and carefully taken off the skewers, I had my candied ribbons!”
The Competition
First-time cocktail comp conductor Richard Wilson of Sandymount Distillery seemed like a great person to chat to about the benefits and the lessons learned.
“Our first cocktail competition was a big learning curve for Sandymount Distillery. There are a huge variety of options out there in the market to gain brand exposure, and as we explore multiple avenues to get the Sandymount name out there, creating a cocktail competition was our answer to one of the most asked questions we get - "how do we drink it?"
"whats this best mixed with?"
"can we use this gin in a negroni?"
We wanted to use this competition to show our audience a large variety of options for the people at home wondering how best to enjoy a Sandymount product. We thoroughly loved seeing the innovative ways people put together their drinks, from the tried and true, through to the fabulous and creative.
However, we came away with some learnings from this exercise.
Messaging: It became clear to us mid way through the promotion that who this competition is for was confused in our messaging. Although we wanted to make it as open as possible for people at home or bar staff around the country, those two worlds are worlds apart. This meant the entries quite different, from humble drinks that can be done in the kitchen, to well-crafted creations by professionals. This makes judging very unbalanced and challenging.
Timing. We did not know (as we are a distillery not hospo) that there is a cocktail competition season! So as the professionals gear up with their most considered and time consuming creations and entries, this meant that we may not have got as many entries as potentially possible at a different time of year.
Product focus: The value of the competition for us lay in our on-premise customers doing the talking for us, with social media posts about all the variety of ways to enjoy our products, with the intent that we may gain some exposure to our range of vermouth, amaro, and liqueur which are more pointed to the cocktail scene. We hoped people would get busy building drinks like our in-house negroni, highlighting the versatility of our offerings. Alas, all entries only used our core range gins.
How valuable is social? This format of competition has the potential for social media activity to be done for us. but in reality, the impact of stories shared of drinks has little impact - we were however pleasantly surprised by the conversations among eager bar staff (particularly Auckland and Dunedin) as they try and navigate which competitions would shine a light on their career and become a badge of esteem.
We offered a $500 airbnb voucher, which I believe is a desirable prize compared to some other similar brand activations through cocktail comps.
In the end, Hollie’s entry was well-thought out, well executed, and while contained a little extra work than a regular gin and mixer, its is a drink that we would encourage people at home to give a crack, or to at least try and find fun and interesting ways to experiment with their spirits at home.
Our team loved the entry and were unanimous in the decision to put it at the top.
We will run Sandymount Signature again next year, and we will take a lot of learnings away from this year to improve on both its reach and value to us, but also its value and meaning to consumers both professional and at home.”