Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/343109
78 / the tasting panel / july 2014 MIXOLOGISTS COMPETE IN SECOND ANNUAL BROKER'S BOWLER CUP by Emily Coleman / photos by Cal Bingham N ot for the faint of heart, in recent months over 130 mixologists from across the country whipped, shook and stirred up their best concoctions for THE TASTING PANEL's second annual Broker's Bowler Cup Competition. After hundreds of consumers cast their ballot through social media, the votes were tallied, and the recipes from the top 12 finalists, three from each region—East, West, Central and South—were painstakingly recreated in a live shake-off at The Pikey in West Hollywood, CA. Our ten judges then had the difficult task of selecting one winner from each region, sending four mixologists to Tales of the Cocktail, where the winning recipes will be served up in the Broker's Gin tasting room. There, an overall winner will be selected by crowd voting, and all four winners will be featured in the September issue of THE TASTING PANEL. "We had a nice wide range of cocktails this year," noted Keri Eliason, Marketing Brand Manager at Hood River Distillers and one of our judges at the live shake-off. "It was super exciting to try the differ- ent flavor profiles—they made it incredibly difficult to choose only one winner for each region." Meridith May, Publisher and Executive Editor of THE TASTING PANEL, also struggled to decide her favorites: "You could really taste the thought and effort that every mixologist put into their cocktail. It's always nice to be surprised by new combinations that really balance each other out, which we discovered in many of these drinks." See all of the finalists and their recipes on the following pages. Broke Going for Bartender Sam Wickham at The Pikey in Hollywood, CA recreating one finalist's cocktail. COMPETITIONS