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ABSOLUTINVITE

Be Inspired Be Exceptional

NEWS2011 · 06 · 01

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A big thank you

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A big thanks to all of you who came to Stockholm and made this weekend in to something that was extraordinary and memorable and will be for a long time to come.

2011 was the first year that the ABSOLUT Invite was held, but will be an annual invitational competition, where bartenders and mixologists from the Nordic and the Baltic countries gather and measure their abilities against one another. With the ABSOLUT Invite, ABSOLUT Vodka wishes to create a competition, that not only measures professionals by their ability to mix or create a cocktail, but rather aims to establish a competition that tests competitors’ abilities in many different ways, in order to push the industry forward and raise the level of professionalism in the trade.

In this digital magazine you can get everything from useful tips when tasting spirits, inside info on what aspects the jury was judging your drinks, to interviews from the top three competitors. All of this will undoubtedly trigger some great memories and leave you with the nostalgia of a fun and inspiring weekend to remember.

Once again, thanks for a great competition and hopefully we’ll see you all in Stockholm again next year!

Katarina Leijon BechtNordic Marketing Manager for ABSOLUT

A big thank you

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CONTENTThe Voyage

Tale Of The Craft Cocktail

A Word From The Jury

Winner (Stylish And Indiscreet Conviction)

2nd Place (The Finnish Karhu)

3rd Place (The Brooklyn Bromance)

In Tony Conigliaro’s World

A Final Word From The Jury

Recipes

Pictures

About The Invite

Results

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Following the national qualifying races that took place from the 4th- 6th of February, the time for the long awaited finals had finally arrived. A total of twenty-six competitors, from seven different countries, had qualified and gathered in the Swedish capital to settle who would bring home the grand prize, an inspiring week in New Orleans and Tales of The Cocktail. The weekend package came filled with festivities, long and delicious dinners and inspiring perfor-mances that resulted in new friendships across country borders.

On Friday afternoon the contenders started gathering at Hotel Skeppsholmen, on the beautiful island of Skeppsholmen in the heart of Stockholm. Later that evening a lovely three course dinner was scheduled and enjoyed at Niklas Ekstedt’s restaurant 1900. It was also Niklas that, the following day, would be in the jury together with Michel Jamais, renowned Swedish wine- and spirits expert and journalist, Andreas Näslund, a well-known Swedish bartender and veteran in the trade for fifteen years and Tony Conigliaro, internation-ally acclaimed bartender, lecturer and owner of the bar “without a name” on 69 Colebrook Row, in London.

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The jury combined extensive and solid knowledge, with decades of experience in gastronomy mixed with a deep understanding of the intricate and fantastic world of wine and spirits and all that topped off with a large dose of savoire-faire and a tight grasp for artisan cocktails.

After dinner on Friday night, many of the top-notch bars of Stockholm were visited, followed by some late night clubbing. Maybe this was the reason why some of the participants’ eyes were a bit droopy the following morning when Tony Conigliaro held his inspirational semi-nar in the beautiful Skridskopaviljongen building, on Kastellholmen. After the seminar everybody was transported to Atelier, the new brand home of ABSOLUT Vodka, where the serious stuff began.

After seven hours and a lot of hard work and creative delight the winner was finally announced. Mathin Lundgren, from Sweden, was awarded first place in the ABSOLUT Invite final 2011 and was followed closely by acclaimed Finnish bartender, Timo Siitonen and well-known Swedish bartender, Mikael Karlsson.

Well done Mathin! Wishing you an inspirational & exciting week at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans.

The Voyage

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If you, as a bartender, are well-read on the history of cocktails, you probably won’t find it so strange to know that the most influential, inspiring and expert gatherings in the business of craft cocktails is located in the southern State of Louisiana, US. To be more specific, New Orleans, or The Big Easy, nickname for New Orleans, refer-ring to the easy-going, laid back attitude that jazz musicians and local residents indulge in there. Historically recognized as one of the most significant cities in the world of libations, sprung from this multi cultural hoarding, cocktails like the iconic Sazerac, the mellow Ramos Fizz, sophisticated Vieux Carré, and unpredictable Hur-ricane has spread and flown over bar tops all around the world’s greatest bars for decades. There you can also find the less known but still thrilling old drinks of New Orleans such as the Roffignac Cocktail, Absinthe Frappé, Three graces Cocktail and Henry’s Ramos Creole Cocktail. Could it be that the city’s cocktail heritage is rooted in the dusky era of New Orleans’ community experiment; Storyville? 1897-1917 saw an attempt to control prostitution, or at least to control what went on in what they then called the French Quarter, the infamous Red-light district of New Orleans. The French Quarter was a place for contemporary sportsmen who took pleasure in gambling, hustling and fiddling business and after a neat-handed fluke at the card table they would often scoot over to the bar to pick a lady of their choice to “keep them company” upstairs for the night. The town was brimming with saloons so after a busy night they would just get up the next morning and do it all over again! This era definitely sparked the culture of how you sipped your booze, but New Orleans’ impressive cocktail heritage goes back longer than that. John B. Schiller created the Sazerac in 1793 at the Sazerac Coffee House, 13 Exchange Alley, and Henry C. Ramos came up with the Ramos Gin Fizz in 1888 at his Impe-rial Cabinet Bar.

- So what about the actual festival today?

They say it best themselves; Tales of The Cocktail is the world’s premier cocktail festival, bringing together the most respected minds on mixology for five days of cocktails, cuisine and culture. This event has something for cocktail professionals and enthusiasts alike with a spirited schedule of seminars, dinners, competitions, parties and special events where brands showcase their latest products. Now in its ninth year, Tales of The Cocktail returns with another round of events all perfectly paired with some of the best cocktails ever made - shake things up to the Tales of the Cocktail 2011.

Tale of the craft cocktail

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Tale of the craft cocktail

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A word from the juryMichel Jamais is one of Sweden’s leading connoisseurs of wine, beer and spirits. Over the past two decades he has been educating Swedes about alcoholic beverages through tastings, educational programs, books, magazines and television.

Michel Jamais, as one of the jurors in the ABSOLUT Invite 2011, what did you think about the competition?

- Out of all the competitions I’ve been involved in, this is absolutely one of the most serious ones! It’s nice to see competitions that are involving more disciplines, such as basic knowledge, technique, sensory and cocktail making rather than the usual com-petitions that only focus on cocktail making. This competition had more in common with sommelier competitions, in the sense of the different parts being tested, which is something that I’m more accustomed to. This evolution in cocktail competitions is definitely something I encourage, as it brings the business another big step forward.

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-Well, of course there are some practical things, like the fact that you shouldn’t dip your nose directly into the glass, but rather start smelling the sample from a short distance, perhaps 2-3 centimetres away. By doing this one can more easily pick up the fine tuned and volatile aromas of the spirit. Another thing that is often misunderstood is that people think that they should swirl the glass before nosing it. This is a bad habit and probably something people have picked up from tasting wine. Doing this will only increase the amount of volatile alcohol fumes and thereby make it harder to smell the true character-istics of the spirit.

One of the disciplines was, as mentioned, a sensory part. As a skilled lecturer and connoisseur of alcoholic bever-ages, such as beer, wine and spirits, is there something one should have in mind when trying spirits?

- Yes, first and foremost I recommend people not get stuck with one sample, but rather go ahead and try all the different samples before trying to identify any of them. By doing this one creates a reference point, thus making it easier to distinguish the differ-ences between the samples. By doing this, a sample that could have been mistaken for a single malt can more easily be identified as a blended whisky with a slightly smoky character.

The participants had to identify five different spirits. Are there any hands-on tips you could give for such occasions?

- Actually, no! If you haven’t been able to identify the samples by nosing them there’s only a small chance that you’ll be able to do it by tasting them. The aromas of spirits are much more easily nosed then they’re tasted! But of course there are also times when it helps a lot to taste a sample. Imagine you’re trying a gin, with strong citrus notes, against a triple sec; they’ll probably be quite similar on the nose, but tasting them immediately differentiates one of them as a gin and the other, the sweeter, as a liqueur. There’s also an advantage in tasting a spirit when determining the age difference in spir-its within the same spirit category. The rancio notes, which usually emerge after a long time ageing, could then be identified as a peculiar type of bitterness on your tongue.

So, you don’t need to taste the samples in order to make a correct distinction?

- A spirit is always produced by a raw material and that should always be in the char-acter of the spirit, e.g. calvados should taste of apples, cognac should taste of grapes or raisins, rum should taste of sugar syrup or arrack, whisky of wholemeal bread with some honey notes, and so on.

If you’re a novice in tasting spirits, and you don’t know what you’re looking for, what should you go by then?

- Well, as with everything else I suppose, by training and getting more experience. A good thing is to start your shift by letting your colleague pour you a couple of samples and trying them blindly. If you could do this every day before your shift starts I’m sure you would become more experienced pretty soon! This is, of course, more easily done with spirits than it is with wine as you can’t open a bottle of wine just because you want to try it!

Lastly, how do you improve your spirit tasting skills?

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Mathin Lundgren

Mathin Lundgren, congratulations on becoming the first ever winner of the ABSOLUT Invite! How does it feel?

- Well, the feeling I got when my name was announced as the winner was indescribable! But to be totally honest, I wasn’t entirely pleased with my performance in all the different parts of the competition. But from a placing point of view I can’t complain! It feels extra good to be able to show your abilities in a competition that covers so many differ-ent aspects of the trade such as versatility, knowledge and flexibility. I think we’re moving in the right direction with competitions like this one, and that’s something I’ve been waiting for and appreciate a lot!

Besides winning, what was most exciting with the competition?

- As always, it’s nice to meet new and interesting people, who work with the same thing as myself and to see what they’re up to, but also to be inspired and be reminded that you still have a lot more to learn. The competition was hard and even though I didn’t know that much about the other competitors I was certainly keeping a watchful eye on my Swedish and Danish colleagues. Besides that I must say that the semi-nar with Tony Conigliaro, on Saturday morning, was really inspiring!

What is your philosophy when it comes to bartending?

- To work with and for your guests. I really hope that the level of service will rise and become more important and not just something that we talk about. At the end of the day that’s what we do, we give people service.

Which is your favourite bar, or destination?

- Well, I really hope that New York will live up to all my high expecta-tions when I go in May, and over there are bars like Milk & Honey and Dutch Kills that I’m looking forward to visit. Those two bars are, besides 69 Colebrook Row, Little Branch and Smugglers Cove, on my list of bars I want to work in some day.

Finally, a fantastic week at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans awaits you. Are you looking forward to it?

- Since the first prize was one of the biggest reasons for me to partici-pate in the competition in the first place, it feels really exciting to finally get to go! I’ve already started practicing so I will be able to enjoy all the fun stuff! Absolut Invite wishes Mathin Lundgren a fantastic & enlightening trip to New Orleans, 20-24 July

2011, and once again Congratulations Mathin!

And who would your dream guest be?

- I’ll have to say Cary Grant, Sean Connery and Elvis Presley, no further explanation needed I believe…

Will you compete next year, trying to defend your title?

- I’ll take that decision then, and if not, maybe I’ve earned a place in the jury for next year’s competition…

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Mathin LundgrenWinner 2011

Absolut Invite wishes Mathin Lundgren a fantastic & enlightening trip to New Orleans, 20-24 July 2011, and once again Congratulations Mathin!

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Timo SiitonenSecond place 2011

Timo, congratulations on making it to the top three in the finals! How does it feel?

- Well, it feels ok, but I think that I could have done better… On a scale from 1 to 10, I would have given myself 8,5 points. But as always, it’s nice to put Finland on the map in a big competition like this one.

So what do you think about the competition?

- To start with, I think that these kinds of competitions are very good for the business and therefore it was fantastic that it was organized. I actually think that there should be more of these innovative competitions with other brands as well! In comparison to other competitions I’ve taken part in, this one tested more than your ability to make good cocktails, and that’s a big step forward. I usually don’t compete anymore but with this competition, with its concept and first prize, it felt different. I believe that it’s the most motivating first prize one can win.

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- A really gorgeous woman who orders an Old Fashioned! (Timo laughs)

What is your favourite destination when it comes to cocktails, and what is your best cocktail experience?

- It’s very hard to pick a certain bar, or city, to be my favourite destination, but as always there are a lot of good bars in both London and New York. My best cocktail experience was in Singapore though! Visiting Raffles Long Bar and having a Singapore Sling at its birthplace will always be a memory that I cherish.

What do you see coming in the future, when it comes to cocktails and bartending?

- In general, I think that we will start looking at cocktails as a total experience including everything from glassware to aroma and texture. In regards to ingredients I think, and hope, that fresh ingredients will experience a strong revival with everything from fresh fruits and berries to herbs and spices. In addition to this I think savoury cocktails will become more popular, using more of the ingredients that the top kitchens use. Finally, I also hope that the use of high quality spirits will become more and more common.

Finally, who would be your dream guest?

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Mikael KarlssonThird place 2011

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Mikael Karlsson

Probably, or at least I hope I’ll make it to the finals again! I really, really want to win that trip to New Orleans and Tales of The Cocktail!

Mikael, congratulations on making it into the top three in the finals, how does it feel?

- Really nice! It’s a big honour to rank top three in a competition as big and serious as this one!

How would you rank your performance?

- OK… Maybe I could have performed better in some parts. Retrospectively, maybe I should have tried to stay healthy, used some nasal spray for my cold and prepared a little bit more. But overall I’m pretty satisfied.

Was it harder than you’d imagined?

- Well, I assumed that it would be difficult and it proved that some parts were really tricky. The width and depth of the competition, combined with the level of professionalism among all competitors, made it easy to understand that this would be pretty hard. For example I expected the Danes to be really good.

As a bartender, where do you get your inspiration?

- Mostly from the people you work with, trips you make, books you read and all the strange things you think about lying awake at night… But at the end of the day it all comes down to having fun and enjoying what you’re doing.

Any favourite bar you’d like to work in or any particular guest you’d love to serve?

- I really enjoy working here at Little Quarter at the moment, but someday I’d love to work with my old pal Victor, who’s in London at the moment, or with Ritchie and Abraham, who I’m good friends with, at Dutch Kills in New York. As for any particular guest I’d love to serve, that question is a bit harder to answer, because I already have so many of my dream guests at Little Quarter… But then again I’d love to serve Keith Richards and to have a chat with him.

Which is your best cocktail experience ever?

- Five Swedish bartenders and I went to The Oak Room, at the Plaza in New York, and ordered a Ramos Gin Fizz each. But instead we each got a varia-tion of a Martinez served up to us. We drank it up, paid, tipped and left… The bartender was a real veteran. It was only that he radiated such authority and confidence - that only 30 years behind a bar can build - that he got away with it! A true hero!

So, will we be seeing you again next year at the ABSOLUT Invite?

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In tonys worldIn Tony Conigliaro’s WorldAfter holding the rudder at several London cocktail hotspots Tony Conigliaro finally opened the doors to his very own venue, the bar without a name at 69 Colebrook row. The bar is located in Angel, which is the artsy and creative district of the London borough Islington. Throughout his career he has been decorated with awards for drink lists, best bars and for being part of ”Best Bar Teams”, and in 2009 he was voted international bartender of the year at the drinks industry’s international shindig, Tales of The Cocktail in New Orleans. He is said to be a pioneer in the use of molecular mixology, tweaking texture and experimenting with flavours in the spirit of Ferran Adrià.

The really unique thing about Tony’s venue is the laboratory upstairs, where he keeps appliances you’d never in your wildest dreams believe were used for improving the cocktails on the menu in the bar downstairs. The mise en place might be something of a platonic chef’s, but the philosophy of the bar is that the customer should never sense the hours put behind the creations. Service is of the highest standard of precision and drinks are prepared within very reasonable delay.

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In tonys worldIn Tony Conigliaro’s World

Redistilling neutral spirits with the addition of herbs, fruits, greenstuffs and even something as radical as a basic stone is one of many things that are going on in the upper floor. Is all of this just for the fun of it? No, it’s more serious than that! The urge to discover new techniques and ways to improve flavours and cocktails has been Tony’s drive in life since switching careers after many years in fashion. His latest claim to fame lies in the release of several vintages of bottled-aged cocktails, the oldest dating back as far as 2005. “The incredible complexity and smoothness the bottle ageing creates

is really remarkable”, Tony says, and every time he writes up a new vintage of a Manhattan or El Presidente on the menu it doesn’t take long until there’s a winding queue of connoisseurs on the curb waiting to sponge the rarities!

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Andreas Näslund, as one of the jurors in the ABSOLUT Invite 2011, what was it like to taste and judge all those drinks?

- By the end of the day I think we’d tried over a hundred drinks, so it most definitely took some effort to stay focused and to maintain a clear picture of what we were looking for in the different styles of drinks.

And what was it that you where looking for?

- Well, we’d chosen the different drinks so that the competitors would have a chance to show how they mastered different techniques and styles of drinks. With their own signature drink, we wanted to give them total freedom to express their creativity and innovativity, and of course achieving this with an ABSOLUT perspective. With the Old Fashioned we were focusing on participant’s ability to stir a drink in combination with their ability to balance bitters with sugar and spirit. The latter part was something that the majority of the competitors had some difficulties with, which resulted in some overly bittered Old Fashioneds being presented to us. Here, the competitors also had the chance to use tailor made ice in their presentation, that had been made specifically for this drink, and those who did were awarded extra points. With the Sidecar we wanted to test them in their ability to make a classic three-component mix, making sure that the drink had been properly shaken. Another feature of this drink is its sugar rim and how it looks. As for presentation, points were awarded for meticulousness and simplicity of the garnish. There were always at least three or four different aspects of the drink, besides taste and smell, that were being judged and we’re pretty sure that that was more than most of the participants anticipated.Finally, there was the drink with the “secret” ingredients. With this part we wanted to see how the participant reacted to stress and their ability to create something with ingredients that were not known to them in advance. This final part of the drink mixing got very interesting and the participants presented a diversified range of drinks with everything from sours and fizzes to cocktails.

It sounds like you had a nice time up at the podium…

- Absolutely! It’s not every day that you have the opportunity to sit down and sample drinks with a group of merited professionals. It was interesting to hear how everybody else reasoned their arguments, but our views were largely along the same lines, despite our different backgrounds.

Was there a big difference between the countries in their way of making drinks?

- Well, some small patterns did emerge… The Baltic competitors put a lot more effort in the garnishing than their Scandinavian counterparts that chose more minimalist garnishes. Another pattern that became evident was, once again, a difference between the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, where the former used more ingredients with sweeter components compared to the latter that largely used less ingredients and more sour ones.

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Andreas näslundAndreas Näslund is one of the most prominent bartenders in Sweden and has more than fifteen years experience behind the bar. Nowadays, Andreas is a well-known consultant who frequently assists Absolut Vodka and Pernod Ricard on numerous projects such as concept development, on/off-trade educations and inspiring seminars.

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The Sweet and Tender Hooligan

50 ml ABSOLUT Vodka1 bar spoon Benedictine D.O.M1 bar spoon Maraschino 1 bar spoon Maraschino Syrup20 ml Lemon juice10 ml Vanilla Syrup1 Egg-white Double shake all ingredients and strain into a chilled coupette.

Spray the top of the drink with ABSOLUT Mandrin.

- Mikael Karlsson

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The Infinite Cocktail

Enjoy responsibly.

- Mathin Lundgren

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50 ml ABSOLUT Vodka12 ml Orange juice12 ml Wheat Syrup*6 ml Lemon juice2 drops of Orange and mandarine bitters from Bob’s bitters

*made with Martini Weissbier and water

Double shake all ingredients and strain into a chilled coupette.

The Infinite Cocktail

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Ruby Road

20 ml ABSOLUT Ruby Red20 ml ABSOLUT Kurant2 dash Rhubarb bitters10 ml Monin Jasmine sugar1 Rosehip tea bag

Infuse the tea bag with alcohols for 3 minutes. Add all the other ingredients and stir cold with ice.

Garnish with a Grapefruit zest inside the cocktail. Serve in a martini glass, on a small plate with lemon balm leaves.

- Timo Siitonen

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2011 was the first year that the ABSOLUT Invite was held, but will be an annual invitational competition where bartenders and mixolo-gists from the Scandinavian and Baltic countries gather to measure their abilities against one another. With the ABSOLUT Invite, ABSOLUT Vodka wishes to create a competition, which not only measures professionals by their ability to mix or create a cocktail, but also aims to establish a competition that tests competitors’ abili-ties in many different ways in order to push the industry forward and raise the standard of professionalism in the trade.

ABSOLUT Invite, in its first year, consisted of several competitive categories: Sensory and Cocktail Mixing followed by Knowledge and Re-make the Drink rounds. The Sensory category required that the contestants identify two differ-ent drinks, five different spirits and two different spices. The second round consisted of Cocktail Mixing where competitors presented their own ABSOLUT Vodka signature drink, made two classic drinks and created a new drink with ingredients that were unknown to them in advance – all of this was carried out under strict time pressure. Cocktail Mixing was followed by the Knowledge round; this consisted of eighteen multiple-choice questions. The competition con-cluded with the Re-make the Drink round, where competitors were instructed to re-create a drink that was presented to them. Choosing between different ingredients they then had to try to correctly guess the name of the drink.

the invite

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ABSOLUT Invite 2011

Total: 1. Mathin Lundgren, 42,4 pts. 2. Timo Siitonen, 39,2 pts. 3. Mikael Karlsson, 38,7 pts.

Cocktail Mixing: 1. Mathin Lundgren, 16,4 pts. 2. Jakob Sundin, 15,1 pts. 3. Mohamad Manouchi, 13,8 pts.

Sensory: 1. Henri Lahti, 16 pts. 2. Kristo Tomingas, Rhys Vickery, Timo Siitonen and Mohamad Manouchi, 12 pts.

Re-make the Drink: 1. Knut Randhem and Stefano Hjort Censi, 5 pts. 2. Terkel Kleist, Mohamad Manouchi, Rhys Vickery, Timo Siitonen and Mathin Lundgren 4 pts.

Knowledge: 1. Knut Randhem and Mikael Karlsson, 14 pts. 2. Timo Siitonen and Mathin Lundgren, 12 pts.

51absolut vodka | purfict | intro pr

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