How To Be a Cocktail Judge

[Chris Amirault]

I've been asked to serve as a judge for a cocktail contest, the Iron 'Tender Competition at Twin Rivers Casino here in lovely RI. From the website:

This Fall, the Iron 'Tender Challenge returns to the Lighthouse Bar at the Twin River Casino. Watch the best bartenders in New England face off as they craft the perfect cocktail in pursuit of nearly $4,000 in cash prizes. Each week, bartenders will be given a secret ingredient to use in their cocktail. A panel of expert judges will grade their concoctions and the best will advance. One grand prize winner will take home the $2,000 prize and be named 2009's Iron 'Tender.

Don't ask what "secret ingredient" means, as I'm not sure yet. Meanwhile, that video makes me wonder if my particular palate will be useful at this event.

Having said all that, I'm eager to hear stories about and approaches to judging cocktail events. What works? What doesn't? And if a drink "tastes exactly like Big Red gum," is that a good thing?

[Wild Bill Turkey]

Please accept. Remember "America's Top Bartender"? The show was as bad as it could be, but what made it all so awful was the quality of the judges. How could you take a show like this seriously if you have no faith in the judges? The TV show had a gigolo and two hired escorts for judges, and the whole thing was a joke. Flair was valued as much as taste, and the contestants were essentially judged on their looks. TV entertainment requires a certain amount of sacrifice of quality in favor of showmanship, but ultimately, even on TV, you have to believe the judges have a clue about what's going on in the glass...

[Chris Amirault]

Oh, I've accepted. And then I watched the video, in which ReddiWip makes a big appearance. So now I'm wondering what this little chapter of life will be like...

[KatieLoeb]

Chris:

Think of this as an opportunity to inject some seriousness and actual knowledge into the judging. Make yourself a point scale/score sheet for Flavor, Balance, Use of Innovative Techniques or Ingredients, and Presentation. Maybe there could be negative points for "Blantant Rip-offs/Derivations" and "Use of Ordinary/Poor Ingrendients", altough I suppose that might be covered by giving less points in the other categories. Show up with your score sheet and make the other judges feel like the rank amateurs they likely are. Be your charming self, but be serious. It ought to earn you some respect and make it a bit easier to stomach...

[Chris Amirault]

Good ideas. Of course, I may be handed a score sheet. Egads.

[KatieLoeb]

This is kind of my point. If you show up with your own scoring system and score sheet format for everyone else, you look like you are taking the task to the Nth degree of seriousness, something which seems to have been sorely lacking in your absence.

There's obviously a reason they asked you to participate. I doubt it was simply to fill out a judge's chair. Show them you're the cocktailian expert they signed up for. This should be almost effortless...

Kick some ass, my brother.

[Chris Amirault]

Newsflash: Society member Michael Dietsch (dietsch), author of the fine Dash of Bitters website, has also signed on as a judge.

The Iron 'Tender website has been updated to include a schedule --

* Tuesday, Oct. 20th: Bols Genever

* Tuesday, Oct. 27th: Don Q Rum

* Tuesday, Nov. 3rd: Castries Peanut Liqueur & Chairman’s Reserve

* Tuesday, Nov. 10th: Heaven Hill Distilleries (Pama, Hypnotiq, Lunazul, Evan Williams)

* Tuesday, Nov. 17th: WILD CARD

* Tuesday, Nov. 24th: FINALS

and, of greater interest to the topic at hand, the rules, the relevant portions of which I am pasting in here:

INGREDIENTS

3. Recipes must contain a minimum of 1 ounce of the sponsoring brand(s) and the total combined alcoholic ingredients must be equivalent to no more than 4 ounces at 40% abv.

4. Drinks must not contain more than Seven (7) ingredients, including fruit juices, syrups, drops or dashes. Solid garnishes are not considered ingredients. It is acceptable to additionally spray a citrus fruit zest over the drink if specified as a garnish. With a few exceptions it is the simple drinks that have gone on to become “classics”, and due to this the judges will be instructed to favor simple drinks with fewer ingredients.

5. Premixes of any kind and home preparations are forbidden without advance authority of the IRONTENDER judges.

6. Unless judges give advanced authority, all ingredients should be readily available at most bars and/or be readily acquired or made.

7. Ingredients may be measured using a jigger or similar measure or freely poured.

JUDGING

Cocktails will be judged on the following criteria and scored out of a potential 100 points per cocktail, per judge.

Name: A drink’s name is crucially important to its sale-ability and points will be awarded with this in mind. (0-10)

Balance: A perfectly balanced cocktail is divine. Is the drink too sour, too sweet or is it superbly balanced? (0-10)

Simplicity: Simple is beautiful. Judges should consider how easily replicated and number of ingredients used. (0-10)

Presentation: The glass and general visual appearance of a cocktail and garnish affect its appeal and points will be awarded accordingly. (0-10)

Aroma: The aroma of the cocktail should be appealing and entice the drinker. (0-10)

Taste: A cocktail should be pleasing. Is this one just palatable, taste refreshing or is it truly delicious? (0-20)

Originality: Competitors must present original drinks and points should be awarded for innovative methods and ingredients. Special consideration should be taken for use of the “Secret Ingredient.” (0-20)

Delivery: Interaction between bartender and customer is fundamental to good service and so judges should reward efficient, stylish and hygienic preparation as well as a confident and entertaining delivery with commentary that demonstrates knowledge. (0-10)

Overall Impression of the Cocktail: Overall Impression of the Cocktail will be used ONLY in the case of a tie. These points will not be counted only until such a time that there is a tie. (0-5)

Based on this scoring system, which makes a lot of sense to me, it would seem that last year's contest operated under different rules. In other words: phew.

[thirtyoneknots]

Interesting that they specify that ingredients should be readily available/carried at most bars and then have Bols Genever as the first sponsor (not that there's anything wrong with it). Indeed, looking at the sponsor's list I'd say that the bar that carries both Hypnotiq and Bols Genever would be quite a rarity.

[Chris Amirault]

As you probably assumed, the distributor that carries those products (and a lot of other stuff too; the Haus Alpenz line is on the way to RI) is MS Walker, the event sponsor. I'd guess that these sorts of contests always have a sponsor link of some sort, either the big boys like Diageo or local distributors like MSW.

[thirtyoneknots]

As you probably assumed, the distributor that carries those products (and a lot of other stuff too; the Haus Alpenz line is on the way to RI) is MS Walker, the event sponsor. I'd guess that these sorts of contests always have a sponsor link of some sort, either the big boys like Diageo or local distributors like MSW.

Oh of course, I just find it humorous. I'm sure some residual jealousy at my inability to purchase any decent Genever in this state has something to do with it.

[Philip Duff]

I've judged an awful lot of cocktail contests, organised quite a few too, and the tenets I try to adhere to are:

1. Don't Agree To Judge Just Anything

More or less, I no longer judge crap contests, where serious competitors do not get a fair crack of the whip. "Not getting a fair crack of the whip" includes (but is by no means limited to): there being no, or only vague or incomplete, rules, point-scoring advice and judges scoresheets published in advance, there being no possibility for Q&A with the head of jury beforehand, last-minute (especially on-the-day and/or contradictory) rule changes, judges who cannot make a decent cocktail themselves* and compulsory use of frankly stupid ingredients**. There is no harm at all in a great fun no-holds-barred cocktail contest for entrants who couldn't care less, but when the contest has at least the semblance of professionalism, it should reward the hard-working and diligent competitor.

* Example in point: the esteemed Simon Difford. Simon would be the last person on earth to describe himself as a bartender, but he can make (by which I mean follow a recipe to make) great cocktails and is thus a good cocktail judge. In passing, his many cocktail inventions and contest victories have proven he's also very talented at creating cocktails.

** Just a few months ago I judged a contest (for the Dutch guild of the IBA) where each competitor was compelled to "draw", like a raffle, a compulsory ingredient from a pool of sponsors. These included such treats as Red Bull, pre-mixed blended fruit-juice drinks and the like. Not only is this a bad deal for the bartender who drew such misguided products for a mixology contest, it's a bad deal for Red Bull, etc. who presumably sponsored in good faith and hoped to get some popularity with the bartenders, instead of being the focus of their resentment.

2. Have A Scoremaster

No individual judge should total his or her own scores, and I'll tell you why: this influences your judging. Each competitor should be judged on each category on your scoresheet, but if you start adding up the scores yourself, you'll start surprising yourself and almost inevitably influencing your subsequent judging. Example: bartender A, whom no-one has ever heard of, comes on and makes a drink that ticks all the boxes decently enough and scores especially well on, let's say, Showcasing Flavour. Bartender A has clearly read the rules and designed his drink to satisfy the scoring categories. Bartender B, a well-known contest-winning local here, comes on and makes a drink that is very fine but does not tick all the boxes as well as A's did. On adding up the scores, you are surprised to notice that A has actually scored a bit more than B. Not much, just a bit. Still, this does sit on you a little bit, and by the time Bartender C comes out...

3. Judges discuss scoring bands, not numbers.

Again, in an attempt to eliminate "number-blindess" as discussed above, judges should by all means discuss their scores with one another, but only in terms of which "band" a competitor is in. Returning to the example above, let's say Showcasing Flavour carries a maximum of 100 points. The bands might be, with some very much off the top of my head examples:

0-19: Poor (Sex on the Beach)

20-39: Amateur (Gin & Tonic)

40-59: Average (Whiskey sour)

60-79: Above average (The Jasmine)

80-100: World class (The Old Fashioned)

Judges would discuss if the competitor's drink falls into Average or Above Average or whatever, but not if they should give him or her a 70 or 60 or 80. If judges are disagreeing terribly about whether a drink is Average or Above Average, it raises the question of how well qualified they are to be on the judging panel. Of course, once agreed in which band a competitor falls, individual judges are free to put them near the top, near the bottom or in the middle of that band.

4. Toss Out Highs And Lows.

Now, for this you need at least 5 judges, IMHO. Simply put, the scoremaster runs a spreadsheet that retains all the scores, but also shows you what happens when you eliminate the highest and lowest judges' score for each competitor. In my experience this also eliminates all possibility of favouritism, and when you compare the raw scores with the highs-and-lows-eliminated ones, there is very rarely any difference, usually of the third-and-fourth-place-change-places type.

[Chris Amirault]

Thanks for that feedback, Philip, which I'm sharing with the organizer. I'll know more about this contest after Tuesday night, and will weigh in on these items when I'm back. Based on last year's video and this year's rules and judging criteria, I think that the competition is moving away from entertainment and toward quality cocktails; I certainly have no chops in judging a flair bartending competition.

[lancastermike]

I have never been asked to be a cocktail judge. I have been asked to judge some minor culinary events and even a talent show or two. Prior to any judging I make it clear to all contestants that i am very much amenable to bribery.

[Chris Amirault]

Last night Michael Dietsch (Society member dietsch), an MS Walker employee named Avery, and I were the three judges for the Don Q rum event. Twelve bartenders made two different drinks in three glasses using Don Q Cristal (their white rum) and three flavored rums (coconut, mojito, and lemon). The contestants worked in teams of four, meaning that the judges got three rounds of eight (!!) drinks all at once. The secret ingredient was lemon verbena, which only one or two of the contestants had heard of prior to the event.

The drinks themselves ran the gamut from complete misses to somewhat workable variations on rum sours. The contestants were enthusiastic and worked their butts of under non-ideal conditions, and it's clear that my statement prior to the start of the competition ("Number one for me is balance, and an overly sweet drink is unbalanced") caused some concerns; I think we got fewer blasts of Sprite in the mixing tins than we otherwise would have gotten.

It's clear that these professionals are used to making big, sweet drinks while in the weeds at an understaffed bar. A few used jiggers to measure but most free-poured, and the inconsistencies among our three glasses suggests that most of what little accuracy is left when you free pour went out the window with the frenzy of the competition.

We used the score sheets aligned to the rules linked to above, so no surprises there. I think that the three of us managed our palate fatigue pretty well, but at the expense of the temperature and dilution of the drinks. The last was a particularly bad problem: when the host said, "Start!" about half of the contestants scooped wet ice out of the bin that had been sitting there for 45 minutes and dropped it into their mixing glasses, then spent four or five minutes grabbing stuff, running around, and adding to their glasses while the ice melted. I don't think a single drink had a dilution near 25%, and most were well over 50%. Frozen drinks were disasters.

Since I'm going to be judging future sessions, including the final, I spent a lot of time talking to the contestants to learn where they worked, what they were aiming for, how they approached their drinks. It was clear that, whatever their competitive spirit, most hadn't been asked questions by someone assuming that they were a bartending professional, and appreciated the opportunity to talk, even if they were surprised. The host had provided a wide range of ingredients, both fresh and bottled, and many were new to the contestants; no one, I think, had heard of Maraschino, and several had their first taste of St. Germain, absinthe, Canton, and tequila anejo.

On the ride back, Michael and I started thinking about changes that could be made to the contest to improve the experience for judges and contestants, as well as promote quality cocktail making in this non-ideal setting. (Middle of the casino floor, surrounded by slot-playing zombies drinking vodka rocks and Jack & Cokes, all suffused with cigarette smoke thanks to a state exemption.) Here's what we came up with:

• Stagger the contestants like the time trials at cycling races for drink one and then reverse it for drink two: one contestant goes up and makes his/her drink, then 5 min later the next goes up, and so on. Order it like so: 1, 2, 3, ... 11, 12 then switch back 12, 11, 10, ... 3, 2, 1. It would produce a lot of beneficial effects. You encourage contestants to watch and talk to their competitors so as not to repeat ideas and to learn about the drinks. (This is particularly important next week as one of the mandatory ingredients is Castries, and I'm worried about getting 18 variations on the "Peanut Butter and Jelly Castrini.") In addition, judges get drinks served cold, and no one is penalized by having their drinks sit for 20 minutes. Finally, judges can discuss the drinks more freely and taste them without being rushed.
  
• Improve ice handling. Have several bins of ice put into a deep freeze 1-2 hrs prior to the event, and have runners or barbacks bring a batch of ice out for each contestant. (There were about a dozen Twin Rivers employees running around.) The ice should go into small coolers at the stations. Finally, the contestants should be told to keep their ice in the bin until they're building, shaking, or stirring their drinks. Sheesh.
  
• Introduce the secret ingredient to contestants in the pre-event reception to give them some familiarity and teach them how to think about it. Until I brought out the two verbena plants, which were hidden under the platform, no one even had thought about the verbena, and only a few bothered to go through the basics (soft press, light muddle, rough muddle, chew) to see how it worked in different applications.
  
• Provide compelling additional ingredients ahead of time. Given the products last night (and next week: Castries and Chairman's Reserve aged rum), I'm pushing for more classic tiki ingredients such as falernum, Angostura, Herbsaint, passion fruit, ginger, pimento dram, etc.
  
• Hold a tasting of the main ingredients in the pre-event reception, giving an opportunity to familiarize contestants with the products but also to teach them about tasting itself.
  
• Make a "competitor's drink," one extra drink for the other contestants to straw taste. That way, as the contestants move off the judges' table, they can continue to talk about what they did and why they did it.
  
• Create small judging result cards that say "The drink's strengths are..." and "Work on..." that would allow the judges to give feedback to the contestants beyond scores. They could be anonymous (or not). Again, given their efforts, it would be great to be able to talk with a bartender about their drink in a more relaxed, considered manner, and to give them more feedback than an aggregate score.

Some of these strategies wouldn't work for, say, a cocktail contest with teams from Mayahuel, Velvet Hour, Teardrop Lounge, etc. -- some would be insulting, frankly; the idea that I have something to teach Phil Ward, Toby Maloney, or Daniel Shoemaker is a joke. However, in our biggest little state, where barkeeps devote hours each night to freepouring flavored vodka over rocks while shooting cranberry juice and Sprite out of the gun, I think that they'd make a lot of sense.

[dietsch]

Since I'm going to be judging future sessions, including the final, I spent a lot of time talking to the contestants to learn where they worked, what they were aiming for, how they approached their drinks. It was clear that, whatever their competitive spirit, most hadn't been asked questions by someone assuming that they were a bartending professional, and appreciated the opportunity to talk, even if they were surprised.

This is something I want to spend more time doing the next time I judge (which will be two weeks from now, since I'll be in New York on 11/3 attending BarSmarts Live).

[Chris Amirault]

Something I want to do more of, too. As my daughter might say, we are totally so not their usual customers.

[Chris Amirault]

Finals were Tuesday night; Jesse Hedberg from Fluke Wine, Bar, & Kitchen took home the gold with a stellar array of classic-influenced cocktails.

Since there were 12 contestants making 5 drinks each, the organizer assigned two spirits to each judge. (I got Bols genever & Heaven Hill/Evan Williams bourbons.) That way, we each had 24 and not 60 drinks to try, and every cocktail was tasted by two judges. In the end, the top two bartenders were the clear favorites of the judges, and the 3/4 spots were also right where the five of us thought they should be.