A couple of years ago I already judged an earlier edition of this competition inside the spheres of the renowned Atomium monument in Brussels. In 2024 the competition took place in the venue of the winner of the edition I judged back then, Andres Claeys’s TapaBar in Antwerp.
The competition consisted of 3 challenges. First a blind tasting of 4 sherries of the Gonzalez Byass premium range, after which the participants had to name the which 4 different sherries they had tasted. Secondly, the dreaded venencia challenge, where the participants had to show off their skills with the venencia, the famous sampling tool of sherry wines. Lastly, the actual cocktail competition where all participants had to create a cocktail using at least 30 ml of sherry, within a specified theme for the competition: cask aging.
Alongside my fellow judges Jules Verlinden and Andres Claeys (both ex-winners of the competition), and Thomas Colla (from Cinoco, the Belgian distributor of Tio Pepe) we had to choose someone to send to the global finale a couple of weeks later. During these global finale week we received the amazing news that our Belgian competitor won the global finale as well, beating competitors from 13 different countries.
Competition winner: Robbe Dupon (Jacobius, Brugge), winning both the Belgian finale and the worldwide finale!
