After a heady contest, the pair of Sonam Kalra and Rohan Matmary won the India finals of the third season of Glenfiddich’s World’s Most Experimental Bartender
If I told you that the India finals of the third season of Glenfiddich’s World’s Most Experimental Bartender was held in the city on this past Saturday, and asked you to guess where it happened, you would probably list a bunch of bars and restaurants and maybe even hotels. But no, not this one.
In line with its philosophy of creativity, experimentation, and collaboration, this unique contest played out at the OddBird Theatre in Chhattarpur.
An open and intimate performing arts space that metamorphoses according to need, the venue challenges the classical proscenium stage and invites out-of-the-box thinking. For a bartending competition that paired the six finalists with collaborators from different creative fields such as music, design, photography, and magic to co-create an innovative Glenfiddich cocktail, that is exactly what was needed.
The six duos presented their ideas before a panel of judges that comprised designer Gaurav Gupta, actress Mandira Bedi, and visual artists Thukral and Tagra, among others. The audience and jury members, with their examination boards, scoresheets, and pens in hand, flitted from one station to the next, taking each sensory experience in. With an abundance of talent and creativity (and alcohol!) in the room, selecting a winner could not have been easy.
Inspired by Kerala
Each of the six carefully created cocktails had a story to tell. Designer Krsna Mehta and his partner Alok Chaughule from Mumbai used local ingredients and coffee in their Kerala-inspired drink, dedicating the creation to the state. After an airplane mishap that resulted in the loss of his suitcases, Chaughule had to make a quick recovery and reassemble all his ingredients in Delhi two hours before the competition!
Photographer Anushka Menon and flair bartender Ami Shroff named their flowery drink ‘Agni-Fuar’, which translates to Fire-Cold in Sanskrit and Gaelic respectively. While the warm drink was cooled down immediately in front of the judges, Shroff juggled two bottles on fire to the beat of Sia’s ‘Cheap Thrills’. “This has been a very passionate project about pushing boundaries. We’re inspiring each other, and we’re inspiring a new drink,” Menon described the experience.
But it was the pair of Rohan Matmary and singer Sonam Kalra that stole the show and emerged as the winning team. Combining their individual expertise in the two very different fields of mixology and music, they offered an experience, and not just a drink. Their red cocktail, titled ‘Zaara’, infused Glenfiddich 12-year-old with cranberries and tiny tangerines, homemade hibiscus grenadine, and rhubarb bitters. “Rohan was kind enough to be inspired by the kind of music I create which is all about the Sufi Gospel Project and blending together many diverse voices of faith to try and create one universal voice. Based on that principle, we decided to take ingredients and understand that no matter how seemingly disparate they are, they all come together to create the perfect equilibrium,” Kalra explained.
The duo will now travel to the Glenfiddich Experimental Bartender Academy in Scotland and compete against eight other national winners to earn the title of ‘The World’s Most Experimental Bartender’ along with the opportunity to showcase their creativity globally as representatives of Glenfiddich at all the major international cocktail events of the year.
“I am looking forward to the next leg of the competition in Scotland wherein we will be competing with bartenders and collaborators from different countries and with unique experiences,” Matmary exclaimed.