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www.cheersonline.com 31 June 2015 • " 31 " 31 " June 2015 • " June 2015 • also like to experiment, try something new, if I'm somewhere that inspires me. I think we're at this stage of the bars where you need to focus on your personality and service skills. Once you're es- tablished, you can sell whatever you want, and you can bring the clients into new cocktails. What I think has become a new cocktail and very good drink is the Penicillin, a whisky-based cocktail with a smoked fl avor, invented in New York [in 2005] by Sam Ross. This is something that still looks like a classic cocktail, and has a strong identity when you see it in a glass. ELIZAVETA EVDOKIMOVA Russia's Elizaveta "Lizzy" Evdokimova won the 2013 Legacy Competition with her "Knight Cup" rum cocktail. With her win, Evdokimova became the event's fi rst female champion, and sat in the judging panel for Bacardi's 2015 Legacy Competition. How popular is rum in Russia? It's really starting to get popular in Russia. Right now, it's just behind whiskey in terms of popularity. Rum is really easy to drink. And as a brand, it tends to have a good story behind it, especially brands like Bacardi, that do a great job promoting their products. Being so easy to drink, rum is really good in cocktails and easy for the customer to understand. With whiskey you have so many different types—Scotch, single malts, etc.—but rum is a bit easier to explain to a customer. And in Russia, we love sweet fl avors, so we love rum. What drinks and spirits are popular right now in your country? Dark & Stormy, Daiquiri, Rum Old Fashioned, and my Legacy cocktail as well. The cocktail culture in Russia really started to evolve about seven years ago. After this, all spirits began to become more popular, because people would read about them and then want to drink new cocktails. What's it like being a bartender in Russia? It's quite good, especially in Moscow, because Moscow is more like New York or Sydney—more cosmopolitan. It's be- come a very popular gig, being a bartender. In Russia and all over, bartenders have become rock stars. It's similar to what's happening right now with chefs. People are going into a bar not because they like the atmosphere of the bar, but because of the bartender who works there. What advice do you have for the aspiring bartender? Work hard. At the end of the day, we're just employees. Focus on working, and not on being a star. One problem with bar- tenders now is that they think it's enough to just be a good professional. But you have to put in the work. What was it like to become the fi rst female to win the Bacardi Legacy Competition? It was amazing. But when I won, I didn't have the view that gender had anything to do with it. If you're a good profes- sional, then you're a good professional, regardless of gender. That said, a lot of female bartenders have been inspired by my winning, because it proved that female bartenders could do big things. SVEN ALMENNING Sven Almenning is at the heart of Sydney cocktail culture. He helped open several cocktail bars in the past decade—Eau de Vie Sydney and The Roosevelt, plus Eau De Vie Melbourne. The city's new laws fi nally support smaller estab- lishments, after essentially permitting only larger pubs for many years. How would you describe the Australian drink culture? Beer and wine are very big here. The spirits side is still rela- tively young. People are not as brand-oriented with that yet, but are becoming more so. Right now, in Australia, gin is a big thing. There's an explod- ing gin market. Whiskey is becoming bigger out here as well. Scotch is the biggest-selling spirit, but it's still being served predominantly in Coke. We sell two whiskeys for every vodka. What can take Sydney—or any emerging cocktail market—to the next level? The cocktail movement follows food trends. Australians are foodies. There's a lot of appreciation for that here, and so Australians are also becoming more discerning and critical with their drink orders. We're also getting bigger into fi ne wine and craft beer. Cocktail culture extends naturally with that. As wine and beer become something costumers look forward to, then their taste for cocktail drinks will also expand. BACARDI LEGACY COMPETITION 2015