This past Sunday evening I attended the Speed Rack season 5 National finals. Speed Rack is an organization that promotes women bartenders, this event is a multi city contest to find the nations fastest women bartender and crown her Ms Speed Rack 2016.
The competition featured eight wild card contestants who participated in timed heats of rounds of cocktails to be judged by cocktail celebrities.
The event that evening also raised money for breast cancer research, so pink was the color of choice throughout the venue including the speed rack logos on the t-shirts, which some might say was a double entendre.
The event was held at the over 100 year old nightclub, concert venue and event space, Webster Hall located at 125 East 11th Street in the East Village, Manhattan. To accompany the competition, two levels of the club were filled with spirit companies serving their products and assorted cocktails.
I stopped by the Luxardo table whose claim to fame is a two century old liquor made from Maraschino cherries, and tried some of their other products which included Aperitivo, an herb and citrus based liquor, and the Fernet Amaro, another dark, intense herb based liquor.
Some of the cocktails I sampled:
St-Germain Cocktail: Processco, St-Germain, club soda.
Lady Reign: Bacardi Maestro, Bacardi 8, apricot brandy, pineapple juice, lime juice, angostura bitters.
Four Roses Cooler: Four Roses bourbon, honey syrup, lemon juice, grapefruit juice, angostura bitters.
Welcome Home: Beefeater gin, apple juice, fresh lemon juice, simple syrup, yellow Chartreuse, velvet Falernum.
English Channel Collins: Plymouth gin, Lillet rouge, fresh lemon juice.
Paradise City: Absolute vodka, spiced Aperol, fresh lemon juice, soda.
Moscow Mule: Absolute vodka, ginger beer, fresh lemon juice.
Exonoration: Singani 63, perfect purée prickly pear, ginger syrup, lime juice, Perrier.
The Grand Life Punch: Kappa pisco, Grand Marnier raspberry peach, lemon juice, bubbles, berries.
Double Dr Punch: Highwest double rye, pomegranate juice, date syrup, lemon juice, orange flower water, mint.
Do Lally Ditty: Jameson Black Barrel, honey, sauvignon blanc, apple juice, fresh lime juice, mango green tea.
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