Entries into the Boothby Drink of the Year Awards are open now.

Spring has sprung, and we’re into the final stretch of drinks and bar openings and new menu launches for 2025 — and that means, folks, that entries are now open in the 2025 Boothby Drink of the Year Awards.

It’s the fourth annual instalment of the Drink of the Year Awards, in which we highlight the great work of the Australia’s best bartenders over the course of the last 12 months. Last year’s awards saw Michael Chiem’s Africola regain the number one spot on the list, having previously taken it out in 2022. But who will dethrone the Africola this year to win the title of Drink of the Year?

You can see last year’s list right here.

The Boothby Drink of the Year Awards is designed to put bartenders front and centre in the conversation around our bars, and to highlight the great drinks they make, night in and night out.

It’s a list of the 50 best drinks from bartenders across Australia, which will be announced at an exclusive invite-only cocktail party at Hacienda in Circular Quay on Monday 1 December (so save the date now).

On the night, in addition to counting down the Top 50 Drinks of the Year, we’ll hand out five major awards:

The Drink of the Year;
The People’s Drink of the Year presented by Club Suntory;
Bartender of the Year presented by Glenfiddich;
Breakout Bartender of 2025 presented by Hendrick’s;
and Drinks List of the Year presented by Perrier.

And this year, each of the major award winners will be featured in Boothby magazine, as will the full list of the Top 50.

We’re asking bartenders to enter the drinks they’re most proud of, the drinks they serve across the bar to punters every night. This isn’t a cocktail competition — this is a recognition of the great drinks bars actually serve. It has to be a drink that has been regularly available over the bar sometime in the last 12 months. It might be for a week, a month, or a season, but it’s got to be a drink that represents that bar and what they do well.

Now, say you’ve got a drink on the list at your bar, created by someone who no longer works there, but it’s a drink the bar is known for and it’s delicious. You can still enter it — just don’t claim you created it, and give props to the person who did.

Here’s how it works:

From Monday 22 September 2025, bartenders are invited to enter their drink at boothby.com.au/drinkoftheyear. The big overarching rule? It’s got to be a drink that has been on the list or regularly available during the past 12 months — this isn’t a cocktail competition, but a recognition of the top quality drinks our bars serve year in and year out. You’ll need a good photo of the drink, one of yourself, the recipe and some more info — you can see what you need to do in the form below.
Entries close 11:59PM AEDT Friday 17 October.
The entries are then winnowed down to the Top 50 Drinks of the Year by Boothby and a select panel of industry advisors. These will be showcased online at boothby.com.au from October 27 2025, when invites to the awards will be sent to the Top 50.
The public is then invited to cast their votes for the People’s Drink of the Year presented by Club Suntory, while a 150-person panel of industry experts casts their votes to determine the order of the Top 50, the winner of Drink of the Year and the winner of Drinks List of the Year presented by Perrier. Bartenders with a drink on the Top 50 will cast their votes for the Bartender of the Year presented by Glenfiddich, while the Breakout Bartender of 2025 presented by Hendrick’s goes to an up and coming bartender on the list who shows the most promise, is gaining more attention, and has shown they’ve arrived.
Next, get ready to party at the exclusive, invite-only Boothby Drink of the Year Awards cocktail party at Hacienda in Circular Quay, Sydney, on Monday 1 December. That's the night when we'll count from 50 all the way down to number one, and handing out each of the five major awards along the way. There will be great drinks, good tunes, and a room of the best and brightest bartenders in Australia.

Are you ready to put your drink in the mix for 2025? Take a look at the form below and enter now.

A word to sponsors, too: if you would like to sponsor the big one on the night, the Drink of the Year itself, get in touch with Sam Bygrave at sam@boothby.com.au ASAP.

You can see past Drink of the Year winners and lists below.

These are the 50 best drinks in Australia of 2024

These are the best cocktails in Australian bars this year.

Boothby.Sam Bygrave