Las Vegas trio win global bartending competition

A global bartending competition that featured bungee jumping, speedboats and a cocktail named Amplextremo proved both exciting and a winning experience for a three-man team from Las Vegas.

The trio -- Anthony Alba, Eddie Perales and Gaston Martinez -- won the fourth annual 42 BELOW Cocktail World Cup Sept. 15 in Queenstown, New Zealand.

The competition featured 42 bartenders from around the globe divided into teams of three by country. The Las Vegans qualified by winning a regional event at the Hard Rock Hotel in July. A team from Miami also competed.

"I had a lot of confidence in our team," said Alba, 28.

"We knew each others' strengths," added Perales, 41. "We have done events at nightclubs and bar shows; we have a lot of experience."

Perales is the beverage trainer/flair manager at the Rio, Alba is the Rio's mixologist, and Martinez and Alba are president and vice-president, respectively, of the Nevada chapter of the United States Bartenders Guild.

Their winning concoction is Amplextremo, whose Latin name means the loving embrace of the future. It is a hot and cold cocktail that includes potato puree, maple syrup, pumpkin pie spice, vodka and a garnish of strawberries frozen with liquid nitrogen.

The drink was designed to be festive because the competition came at the end of New Zealand's winter season. But more importantly to the team, the goal was a balanced cocktail.

"For the flavor profile, we thought of Thanksgiving and holiday flavors," said Martinez, 32, bar manager at Nora's Cuisine. "I'm from Argentina and we use a lot of dolce de leche, so we threw some of that in, and then started messing around with the flavors."

The result is a cocktail that is "cold, sweet and very thick" on the bottom, and "hot and spicy with chili threads added in" on the top.

"Basically, the two components as you drink them end up balancing each other out," Martinez noted.

Team members, who added bourbon to the drink after Congress declared September National Bourbon Heritage Month, represented the United States throughout the competition by incorporating red, white and blue into their daily outfits and wearing their guild pins.

In New Zealand, the teams attended summits discussing the history of the cocktail, performed at home bars and participated in three extreme shaking-style competitions.

The Las Vegas team won the bungee shake competition, in which bartenders had to mix a drink and complete a bungee jump from a bridge while shaking a cocktail. Another event saw the teams flown by helicopter to a mountain where each had five minutes to construct a cocktail using mystery items in a box. For the third event, teams were shaking and pouring cocktails while being driven on a speedboat.

"The speedboat was awesome," Martinez recalled. "We were traveling 60 to 70 miles per hour through this canyon with last-minute turns. You really think you're going to die."

During the finals of the competition, teams had to make their cocktail six times in seven minutes, with a minute and a half to set up and the same amount of time to leave the stage.

"After we got off stage we knew we did a great job," Alba said. "The best rounds of our lives."

Although the team will receive plaques and certificates, Perales said the reward of the competition was to "just have the opportunity from the beverage world to represent the country and take it."

"It is something you'll always remember for the rest of your life," Martinez said.

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