MASSIE DURING THE DIAGO WORLD CLASS FINALS. PICTURE: TOM YAU
from an initial top 100 to the final five, the father of two joined his fellow finalists in Sydney for the showdown to be No. 1. Held across three rounds, Massie took out the Johnny Walker Blue Label Challenge, before being pipped for the national title by Eduardo Conde from Paddington venue El Primo Sanchez. Armed with a competitive streak, Massie, who has showcased his skills across a variety of Hobart hotspots over the years including the old Barcelona, T42 and Grape, was naturally disappointed to not earn the chance to represent his country in the World Class global finals in Brazil in September. However for a tightknit industry, the competition is more than just winning and losing. “These things are a fantastic one for a national profile, but the best part about them isn’t designing the cocktails or getting up on stage or any of those things. It’s actually being in a room for a day with four of the other top bartenders from around Australia and talking about ideas and talking about what we think is happening in the industry. Those inspirational moments are really what this is about and establishing those relationships,” Massie says.
“You are always in it because you’ve got a bit of a competitive nature but as with most top end sports, if you have a good competitive nature and you respect the other competitors, that’s when this sense of camaraderie comes. You’re all going through the same stress, you’re all going through the same thing. On the day you’re all presenting to the same judges, you know how each other feels. “Some people deal with nervousness better than others but I’ve never been in this situation and not seen someone nervous. As good as you get or however many times you do this stuff, there’s always some element of butterflies in the stomach. So, you’re all going through this together and it is definitely that camaraderie, and then hopefully as time goes by after the competition when you do travel or when you go to an interstate city, you go to these people’s bars that you’re competing with.” F or the second stage of the Diageo World Class, competitors were given a brief which revolved around creating an initiative that would support, benefit and give back to community. One of Massie’s biggest passions is using native ingredients when creating his cocktails, so he delved into some research around
10 Tasmanian Hospitality Review August/September Edition
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