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Portland Cocktail Week - Day 4: All About The Rack
By Geoffrey Kleinman on 10/24/2011
Portland Cocktail Week really hit its stride with Speed Rack, an all-women speed bartending competition with all proceeds going to charity. Speed Rack entrants compete head to head, making four drinks as fast as they possibly can. They get these four drinks from the judges moments before they compete. The judges featured an all-star panel including Audrey Saunders, Charlotte Voisey, Misty Kalkofen, and local Portland celebrity drag queen Poison Waters.
Speed Rack competitors were timed on their drinks and then received bonus 'speed' from the judges or penalty 'slowness' depending on the final quality of the drinks (which was the deciding factor in several of the rounds). In the end, it was Portland's Lacy Hawkin and Melissa Cross from Seattle who battled it out in the final round with Melissa winning the Portland Speed Rack title. Missy will go to NY to compete in the Speed Rack Nationals.
As exciting as the head-to-head competition was, the focus was squarely on charity. Some of Portland's notable female bartenders made the rounds planting big red lipstick kisses on the cheeks and foreheads of many of the attendees who donated money to breast cancer charities.
Day 4 of Portland Cocktail Week was also Day 2 of the Great American Distillers Festival. After duking it out for two days in the mixology contest, it was Art Tierce from Teardrop Lounge who was victorious. This is a fairly huge win as past winners of this contest have included Ali Tahsini from Bourbon & Branch, and Evan Zimmerman from The Woodsman Tavern.
With all the seminars, tastings, and competitions out of the way, the focus shifted squarely on partying (something that bartenders do better than almost anyone else....even movie stars and rock stars). Imbibe Magazine threw a bash at the Spirit of ‘77, one of Portland's most buzzed about sports bars, to celebrate their 5th anniversary. The party was a fantastic exclamation point to a very successful cocktail week, with Anu Apte, Jennifer Colliau, Erick Castro, Trevor Easter, Misty Kalfoken, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, Chris Patino, Kimberly Patton-Bragg, Dave Shenaut, and Evan Zimmerman all mixing up drinks to help celebrate Imbibe's big milestone.
After the Imbibe Bash was the closing party for Portland Cocktail Week - Stripperoke at Devil's Point strip club. Stripperoke is uniquely Portland: strippers dance on stage as people sing karaoke along side them. It was a blast, with bartenders serenading the crowd.
Although only in its second year, Portland Cocktail Week showed that it has many of the right elements to become one of the key cocktail weeks in the country. Its smaller size accompanied with the Portland city backdrop lent to an exceptionally fun weekend that exemplified just how close the greater bartending community can be.
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