The winner of the Australian round of the MONIN Cup 2024 bartending competition was crowned on 15 July at the finals at Bancho in Sydney.
Jonathon Nati of Banco Manly took the top spot, impressing judges with his cocktail Mellow. Inspired by his garden and featuring homegrown ingredients, the low-alcohol take on the classic Margarita featured peppercorn-leaf hydrosol, Indian-gooseberry infused verjuice, mezcal, MONIN Vanilla, Seadrift non-alcoholic spirit, and MONIN agave, and was finished with a marshmallow made from MONIN syrups.
As well as taking home the $5000 prize money, Jonathon will also receive business class tickets and luxury accommodation for the Asia-Pacific final of the MONIN Cup in Malaysia in September where he’ll battle it out for a spot at the grand final in Paris, France.
In the Australian round, each of the five competitors had 10 minutes to prepare and present their low-alcohol MONIN cocktail to a panel of four judges. The drink had to feature at least 10ml of MONIN products. The theme this year was ‘low is more’ and each competitor had to tell a positive story about their experience with low-alcohol mixology while they prepared their serve.
The MONIN Cup is designed to push the boundaries of mixology to new heights. The grand final in France will take place in December 2024.
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