These are the Australians on the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards Top 10 nominees list for 2024
It’s a good showing for Aussie bars again this year (and Boothby’s third time among the Top 10).
Well, it has been a late night on deadline for me, so excuse the early morning send, but it has ended with some good news: the New Orleans-based Tales of the Cocktail have announced their 2024 Spirited Awards Top 10 nominees for a wide variety of categories — and there’s a number of Aussies on the list.
Among them — I’m very happy to report — is Boothby, which is listed for the third time among the Top 10 Cocktails & Spirits Publications in the world. Thank you to all of you who read and share our stories — it’s a great privilege to get to write about this bar world I love.
And like I said, there is good news for a number of Aussies this year: good friends and leaders in good drinking, Luke Whearty (Byrdi) and Matt Whiley (Re — we can claim him as an Aussie now, I think?) both featured in the honours for the International Bartender of the Year category.
Tim Philips-Johansson, the former owner of the much missed Bulletin Place, and likely the most awarded bartender to emerge from Australia, scored a nod on among the Top 10 in the Best International Brand Ambassador category for his work with Johnnie Walker. Here’s hoping it’s his year this year!
Caretaker’s Cottage continued their winning ways with a nomination among the 10 best in the world for Best International Bar Team, while both Luke Whearty’s Byrdi and the highly-awarded Sydney cocktail bar, Maybe Sammy, both scored nods in the Best International Cocktail Bar category.
Dean & Nancy on 22, the Sydney bar atop the A by Adina hotel, scored a place among the Best International Hotel Bar nominees, while El Primo Sanchez — the third venue under the stewardship of Stefano Catino and Vince Lombardo’s Maybe Group to make the awards nominees this year (Maybe Sammy and Dean & Nancy being the other two) — scored a spot in the Best New International Cocktail Bar category.
In the World’s Best Cocktail Menu category — a huge honour — Sydney’s Maybe Sammy is nominated, and in the World’s Best Spirits Selection category, that old stalwart of Australian whisky bars, The Baxter Inn, rightly got their nod.
And I am super stoked to note that Australian drinks writer and co-owner of Goodwater in Melbourne, Cara Devine, scored a nomination among the finalists for the Best New Cocktail or Bartending Book, for her work Strong, Sweet & Bitter. It’s a beautiful book and well-deserving of the nomination. Fingers crossed for the win!
The Top 10 will be whittled down in a few weeks to the Top 4 in each category, before the winners are revealed at the annual Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards in New Orleans.
