I heard that this year gonna be year of cocktails but between you and me every year is “year of cocktails” to me 😀 In any case I want to introduce you to 10 finalists of DBC Masters which is short for Diageo Barmen Club Masters, the highly esteemed platform for professional bartenders’ competition to decide on Turkey’s best bartender.
Only 50 bartenders can enter first phase of DBC Masters competition and out of 50, ten chosen to be finalists. Full finalist list is at the end, and I suggest you visit them because they are the new generation of bartenders with unique cocktails. Although most of them are from Istanbul, you can also find names from İzmir and Muğla, popular seaside destinations of Turkey. By the way winner gets one week training in London.
I’m going to introduce you to “The Secret Garden”, which is one of the finalist cocktails made by Anılcan Safa. This cocktail was born from “now create a cocktail in 15 minutes from whatever random materials we gave to you” part of the competition. So it’s amazing how come a 15 minute creation tastes this good! But I guess that’s where bartender skills show 🙂
The Secret Garden is a vodka based cocktail with a garden mix of lime, lemons, oranges, mandarin and so on. Last week I get to try it in a workshop with Anılcan himself, and even though it was first time I’m doing a cocktail the mix was so fail proof that I enjoyed even my version 🙂 Of course I may not have finished with all the decorations so I’m also putting a “legit” photo of it 😀 You may have realized hash tags accompanying the photo because supporting your favorite cocktail in social media is a thing and creating a trending cocktail is also part of the competition 🙂
Price for this cocktail is 30 TL (around 10 dollars) as of February 2016.
By the way in the same workshop we also made 3 different cocktails too and all were good. I especially liked “zombie”s glass. Though same glasses are not in sale Turkey you can find similar ones in Paşabahçe (a brand in Turkey) stores.
And here is the list you have been waiting for…
Names of the bartenders are in bold and in capitals, next to them you can find the pubs/clubs/restaurant where you can find them and try their special cocktails!
Diageo Barmen Club Masters Finalists (2015)
SERHAT İLERİ – 5 Cocktails & More – İstanbul
OKAN GÜNEY – İndigo – İstanbul
ÖZHAN ZENGİN – Joker NO 19 – İstanbul
BERAN TUNCAY – Lacivert – İstanbul
ONUR BALK – BiBuçuk – İstanbul
MEHMET KEMAL AKŞAN – 1888/İzmir
ALİ RIZA KETENCİ – Marriot Hotel Şişli/İstanbul
ANILCAN SEFA – Hyatt Regency Hotel Ataköy/İstanbul
BAHATTİN AYDIN – Kepler Social House – İzmir
ÇAĞATAY ERCAN – Geyik Muhabbeti – Muğla