Mademoiselle Cointreau Cocktail Contest

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The Blackbird hosted the inaugural Mademoiselle Cointreau contest this week, an all-women cocktail competition with 14 bartenders from the city battling it out for a trip to Angers in France to visit the Cointreau Academy. One of the judges, Jay Jones spoke with Eater: Cointreau wanted to highlight the feminine properties to their spirit, plus their master distiller is a woman, so they changed from the 'Craft of Cointreau' contest that we've run for the past five year to this new idea. It was a really great thing; although we have a growth in the cocktail community it's heavy with dudes and we want it to be an equal environment. "This was a good chance for creative women to get on stage and show off their imagination. The result was overwhelming. We had so many applicants, many had never competed before, which was exactly what we wanted. And it wasn't just the usual suspects in bars, we had entrants from the Hard Rock Casino, Commodore Ballroom and the Charlatan on Commercial too, there were lots of fresh faces. We were looking for interesting and imaginative ideas with a the basic idea of a Cointreau fizz; we had champagne cocktail styles of drinks, even an ice-cream float. In the end our two winners Dani Tatarin from the Keefer and Evelyn Chick from Blue Water Cafe won; they are both well-seasoned international competitors and experience counts for a lot, but the first-timers did really well and it was great to encourage the new generation. Images via The Blackbird. · All Dani Tatrin Coverage [EVAN]
· All Evelyn ChickCoverage [EVAN]
· All Blackbird Coverage [EVAN]