The competition, which is now in its ninth year, employed the efforts of 10,000 bartenders worldwide and aims to find a cocktail that can be sold as a Bacardi modern classic.
The global final was contested by bartenders from 36 markets over three days in Berlin, which was reduced to eight bartenders after the first two days of competition.
The Belgian bartender (pictured centre) works at The Pharmacy in Knokke, Heist in Belgium and his Clarita cocktail is made with Bacardi Gran Reserva 8, sherry, absinthe, crème de cacao and saline solution and is inspired by his family, heritage and innovation.
The eight finalists included Grace Tsai from Taiwan, Conor Myers from Ireland, Dave Kerr from Australia, Ran Van Ongevalle from Belgium, Loreta Toska from Greece, Kentaro Satoh from Japan, Darren Miley from New Zealand and Hideyuki Saito from Thailand.
The finalists were tasked with preparing two cocktails within seven minutes in front of a live audience, which was judged by a panel of industry experts from around the world.
One member of the judging panel was Gn Chan, 2016 Bacardi Legacy Champion, who believes that the standard of the competition was better than that of last year.
Chan said: “It’s so hard to judge just on presentation because all of the competitors were so genuine and so real.”
Tsai from Taiwan and Satoh from Japan were runners-up in the grand final which saw more than 200,000 Chinese people watch via a live stream on eight different social media platforms.
Bacardi announced that next year’s edition of Legacy will be held in Mexico City, Mexico and the brand will work with Ongevalle over the next year to promote the winning drink in bars worldwide.
