Philippine Bartending Retrospect in 2013
This year definitely deserves to be reflected upon for it was swamped with activities which truly has a lot of learning.
Philippine Beverage Congress part 2 featuring Tomek Malek which we held in Padi's Point Araneta. We still hold the record for attendance during part 1 which is at 750.It was a solemn event and informative one since we learned a lot from the best in the world this year.
Liquid Concepts - Our friend Larry Guevarra, one of the "real" legends in Philippine Bartending is definitely in the country. After being the champion in the mixology cup, He is now whipping up those concoctions in the Bottleshop. If you want to learn...drop by his shop in Magallanes.
Bacardi Myxology University is something new to the academe. Bacardi rum which is an international brand decided that it is time to connect with the schools and Pinoytender partnered with them to make it possible. For it's initial launch it was participated by 6 different schools like Lyceum of the Philippines University, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, University of Santo Tomas, and Systems Plus College. We were able to invite resident speaker of Bacardi by the name of Arijit Bose from India. After this run we even held a seminar for the professional bartenders in Manila and it was held in Crowne Plaza.
Bacardi Myxology Competition - After the successful run of the seminar it was time to put up a mixology competition for students. The main objective of this competition is to let the student make a cocktail while talking infront of the guest. Our distinguished panel of judges included Erwan Heussaff of Niner Ichi Nana, Adrian Gearing of Holland America Line and Noel del Rosario of N20 Gastropub.
Molecular Mixology by Liquid Chef Neil Ocampo - we helped Hatters Inc. launch this concept in Philippine Bartending and we even learned and fell in love with cryogenics and emulsification.
Monin Cup 2013 - This year we helped Savoroso to organize their yearly competition. We were able to make it the much anticipated event for the mid year.
Philippine Flair Open 2013 - The year of activities was capped of by the biggest flairtending competition in the country. Judges were form Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Korea. Foreign participants came from Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam and Russia.
Media support from F&B World and HNM - we were able to get media exposure from them.
Rob Husted Flairbar.com - the main man in online magazine about bartending has graciously supported us by writing articles and promoting our events. Thank you Rob.
The year has been good and well worked.With all the learnings we got from all these events, we will take all of these and bring them one for next year making sure we exceed the things that we did for this year.
To our brothers at World Flair Association - we are currently at a state wherein we are one especially after Philippine Flair Open 2013. We will continuously work on it. Thank you for still keeping us in the loop despite of all the prior events.
To our supporters, friends, sponsors,partners,and others.We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.We live. We learn. On thing we learned is the L in LEARN which means LOVE. We LOVE Bartending and we will show it in all events that we do to inspire others to LEARN as well.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Philippine Flair Open 2013 Event Summary
Here in the Philippines, this event has been considered as the competition that "paved the way" for the Filipino flairtender to penetrate the international competition circuit.This competition was made to LEARN,
ELEVATE and EXPOSE our country to the FLAIRBARTENDING PROFESSION. as
well as develop TRUST, SPORTSMANSHIP, FRIENDSHIP and FAIR GAME among our
brothers whether participant or judge.
This year, we had new sets of judges coming from Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Korea as well as from our own country.
November 28, 2013 was the elimination round where in there were 18 local competitors and the top 5 will advance to the finals. We are grateful to have one participant from Cebu and one from Davao.
Our top 5 finalists were: Joseph Anthony Apostol, Mike Rabago, Darwin Deguzman,Shallum Recto, and new addition Joe Mari Castillo.
November 30, 2013 was the finals which included new players from Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam and Russia.Apart from the top 3 we gave out special awards which included the BIGGEST MOVE which was bagged by Darwin De Guzman, and the PEOPLE'S CHOICE which Shallum Recto took home.
On paper, the top 3 were 1st and 2nd Taiwan, and 3rd place was Joe Mari Castillo.
Mixed reactions and emotions were expressed for deep in their hearts our top 5 deserved to be included there as well. As organizers, we value and respect that which is why we released the raw scores for the finals of all the judges as well as their videos so everything would be transparent.
Looking back at the objectives, we were able to achieve all of them.Learning, is a never ending process even in "organizing" a big event such as an international competition.Attention to details play an important factor that can lead to the overall experience of each competitor.Learning how to judge properly is also a constant learning experience.We have achieved this since this year 4 Filipinos participated in well known competitions in Asia and we were able to finish in the top 5. These include, Joseph Apostol, Darwin de Guzman, Shallum Recto, Joe Mari Castillo, and Jerwin Calayag, all of which participated in PFO this year.We as a country will not stop learning since we already started accepting everything that our brothers advised us.
We are not perfect but we will strive for perfection.Friendship is indeed seen in every competition. In fact our brothers from Russia was kind of unexpected as participants since they are miles way from our country.But they even extended there stay and went to Palawan, a place which our friend Tomek Malek went to as well.
If there is one thing that we learned here is one advise which one of our judges gave "If you don't have monetary support, better not hold a competition." This actually makes a lot of sense. An international competition is BIG. We cannot just let the money revolve as funds like we have always been used to here. In line with this, we are still thankful for all our sponsors that includes: Noel Bazaar, Cut Unlimited, BACARDI, Monin, Coca Cola, Hilik Boutique Hostel, Outback, Flairbar.com, F&B World, HNM Magazine, N20 Gastropub, World Class Concepts Corporation, Ocean Glassware and of course Liquid Concepts and Razor Chef.Thank you for all your help since we were able to push through with the competition successfully.
Philippine Flair Open will always be part of Philippine Bartending history and rest assured we will be back even better.
As a final word, we would like to apologize for all the people who we might have caused inconvenienced, thank you to all our local and foreign participants, all the friends we gained, all the people who watched and cheered.As organizer, we will continue to support even the underground and small competitions in the country. Do not hesitate to approach us for we only have one goal, one dream....international recognition. Mabuhay!!!!!!
Here are the pictures of Philippine Flair Open 2013
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