On this Martini Day, welcome to this new edition of Jigger Daily, your all-bars-and-bartenders newsletter!

Here’s what we have in store this month (and more!):

• 🤝 Acquisition of the Little Red Door
• 🧙 A liqueur competition
• 👯 A cocktail bar and performances
• 🌶 The most trending summer flavors
• 🍸 Atlas in Paris
• 🛂 The first Prague Cocktail Week
• ♻ Tips for a more sustainable bar
• 🥁 A Martini in beatbox
• 🏆 Plenty of cocktail competitions
• ⚽ The economic impact of Euro 2024 on bars
• 🥤 A Cuba Libre without Coke

And so much more!

🧙‍♂️ Wizard Awards 2024: create tomorrow’s Gabriel Boudier liqueur!

To celebrate its 150th anniversary, Gabriel Boudier is inviting French bartenders for the very first time this year to take part in its liqueur creation contest: the Wizard Awards! More than just a regular cocktail competition, this is about creating one of the pillars of your future recipes, with a chance to see your creation join the 2025 range of the Burgundian liqueur house! Tempted by this unique opportunity? Registrations are already open: click below to sign up, grab your participation kit, and bring your original liqueur to life!

🍹 Bars

Little Red Door

Here’s the biggest bar news of the week: the founders of Cambridge Public House (Paris), Hugo Gallou and Hyacinthe Lescoët, have acquired the Little Red Door! Ranked 6th in the 50 Best Bars 2023, it had recently announced its closure due to internal conflicts. The bar will therefore reopen in July after some renovations, with its nine remaining employees and six to seven new hires. Timothée Prangé, who founded the bar in 2012, expressed his gratitude to the new owners – Source

Sister Midnight

For the launch of the new menu at Sister Midnight, Jigger Daily met with Jen Riley to learn more about the origins and concept of her bar (featuring both cocktails and cabaret), her recipe development process, her dedication to hospitality, and also about the cocktail scene in her hometown, Manchester – Read more

Flashback

CopperBay is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary with a new menu paying tribute to the 80s and 90s, simply named Flashback. It features eight cocktails from that era, reinvented with contemporary—and most importantly—less sugary ingredients. Check it out now until the end of September – Source

Bluebird Equinoxe

Since it took flight in 2016, Bluebird has been one of the go-to bars in Paris. Nicoló Martino, its head bartender, presented his new Equinoxe menu to us, built around the concept of cyclicity. He also gave us a glimpse of an Italian "school of bartending" and shared his perspective on the current cocktail scene in his homeland – Read more

Neo-Bauhaus

News from the upcoming Bordeaux bar of Remy Savage, 🟧🟩🟪🟨🟥🟦 (or “a bar with shapes for its name”): it’s set to open by early July, and they apparently already have the chairs! 😅 – Source

Mysteries of the World

Paradiso (#1 in the 50 Best Bars 2022) launched its new "Mysteries of the World" menu during the most recent Paradiso Sustainability Summit. It features 15 cocktails, each paying homage to an unsolved mystery… and the result still appears to be wow-worthy – Source

Divine

Divine (Paris) is changing hands. That’s what Nicolas Munoz, its founder (also behind the bar Bisou), announced. The buyer is Shaba Salami (@shaba_ang) – Source

Ninkasi

Ninkasi continues its expansion and will open its first venue in the south of France, in Montpellier, this Friday, June 21. More openings are also planned in Lille, Metz, Besançon, then Rennes and Grenoble, as well as franchises in Toulouse and Bordeaux in 2025 – Source

🍒 Mathieu Teisseire Flavour Masters 2024: Maxence Piattelli won the France final!

As planned, the French final of the Flavour Masters – the cocktail competition run by Mathieu Teisseire – took place on Monday, May 27 in Paris. After a full day and three creative challenges for the 7 participating finalists, Maxence Piattelli of Requin Cocktails in La Rochelle was crowned the winner! He will represent France in the competition’s grand international final in October.

Until then, find all the details and behind-the-scenes from this great mixology event on the website!

🏆 Other competitions

In other competition news:

• After 8 hours of deliberation, the Bartender Beach Challenge revealed the list of the 10 candidates selected for its final on July 1 – See
• Nc'nean likewise announced the 69 qualifiers for the regional rounds of its Nc'nean Creations competition, including 11 bartenders for the Paris stage – List
• Nikka Whisky has started the 13th edition of its Nikka Perfect Serve contest. Fifteen national rounds will take place across North America, Asia, and Europe (including France, on June 17 at the Experimental Cocktail Club), with a global final scheduled for December 2 and 3 in Paris – Source
• Another new competition is also underway in France right now: the St-Germain Spritz Club. Registrations are open until July 2, ahead of regional finals in September and October – Source
• As for results: the non-alcoholic brand JNPR hosted on June 3 in Paris the international final of the very first JNPR Cocktail Competition. After the tests, Petros Vossos from Upupa Epops in Greece took the win – Source
• Esmeralda Castrogiovanni, from Sips in Barcelona, won The Art of Italicus Aperitivo Challenge, whose global final took place in Rome in mid-May. Jan Križaj from Ljubljana and Stephanie Wullschleger from Basel took second and third places respectively – Source
• The global final of World Class 2024 will be held in Shanghai from September 9 to 13. It’s the first time this event is taking place in China – Source

🧋 Trends

Summer flavors

If you’re looking for inspiration for your next creations, Diageo has identified (with AI’s help) five flavor trends for the upcoming summer: umami (+79% interest in turmeric in the UK and +55% interest in gochujang in the US), spicy (+32% for jalapeño in the UK and +53% for pepperoncini in Australia), tropical (+50% for tamarind in the US and +18% for guava in the UK), gourmet (+12% for coffee in the UK and +91% for hazelnut worldwide), and floral (+67% for elderflower in France and +36% for rhubarb in Canada) – Source

Slushies

Less surprisingly, according to a Paragon Brands study conducted in April with 2,000 Britons, boozy Slushies will be the star drink of the summer, favored by 24% of respondents and as many as 47% among Gen Z. One-third (34%) of those surveyed said they generally prefer frozen cocktails to classic ones, considering them more refreshing in 61% of cases (which is quite obvious) – Source

Sustainable bars

On another note, if you’re looking for tips to reduce your bar’s environmental footprint, Barmag has listed 10 commandments to help you. Among them: working with as many artisanal, local, and organic products as possible, recycling your waste smartly (e.g., lemon peels, trimmings, broken glasses...), saving ice by loading your mixing glasses less and storing your glassware in the fridge, or ordering your spirits in bulk – Source

Euro 2024

If England wins the Euro 2024 soccer tournament (June 14–July 14), British bars and pubs could see sales soar by £800 million. According to UK Hospitality, even just through the current group stage, sales could reach £340 million, with two out of five Brits planning to watch the matches in pubs or bars – Source

🛫 Jigger Daily on Tour

Prague Cocktail Week

From May 6 to 13, the very first Prague Cocktail Week took place. Residents and visitors in the Czech capital were invited to enjoy reduced-price cocktails in about thirty venues for the occasion, and Barnews was there! Cocktails, events, guest shifts, and competitions... we’re telling you all about it on the site! – Read more

Atlas Singapore in Paris

For one night only, on June 15, the Bar Les Ambassadeurs at Hôtel de Crillon in Paris welcomed Yana Keller from the impressive Atlas bar in Singapore (48th in the 50 Best Bars 2023) for a memorable guest shift... Read more

🥁 To see or listen to

Beatbox at the Connaught

If you love Martinis AND beatbox, the team at Connaught Bar in London had fun combining both in a video where their signature cocktail execution is entirely vocalized by an Italian beatbox pro, Alberto Niero (aka BlackRoll) – See

Death Alley

Hellfest continues to develop its cocktail offering. The festival, which takes place from June 27 to 30, will feature – among other things – a dedicated street called Death Alley, with 6 themed bars created together with its partners Jägermeister, Fireball, Sailor Jerry (returning and replacing Kraken), Ardbeg, ... as well as local / Made in France brands. And even some clear ice from The Nice Company (a sure sign of how far it’s come!).

If you’re curious, I talked about it in more detail on the latest episode of DistilCast, with Marjorie Dumontel (aka Hellfest’s Mrs. Cocktail) –  Watch / Listen

🥼 DIY

Fat Wash 2.0

For Vinepair, GN Chan (Double Chicken Please) described an original way of doing a fat wash technique, not to give a spirit a fatty flavor (e.g., bacon), but rather by using the fat (butter in this case) to first extract flavors from other ingredients (e.g., cinnamon, coffee, mushrooms, ...), then using this filtered, infused butter to flavor a spirit. Clever! – Source

Cuba Libre without Coke

In a new video on his channel, Cesar Debus revisits the Cuba Libre recipe without using Coke! Instead, he makes a homemade liqueur with vodka and cola-flavored Haribo candies, later topped up with sparkling water – Watch

🏅 Awards

Spirited Awards

Since the previous edition of Jigger Daily, the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation successively revealed the Top 10s then Top 4s in each category for its Spirited Awards 2024 ceremony, which will take place on July 25. Two Parisian venues remain in the running: Danico (potential Best International Restaurant Bar) and Bar Nouveau (potential Best New International Cocktail Bar).

50 Best Bars

Meanwhile, the 50 Best Bars 2024 ceremony (the 16th edition) will take place in Madrid on October 22 – Source

Top 500 Bars

And less than three weeks later, the Top 500 Bars will reveal its Top 100 most influential bars in the world on November 10 in Paris – Source

📰 Press Releases

• Maison Lehmann announces the launch of its new Collection Signature F. Thireau, dedicated to the art of mixology – See

Maison Lehmann, a French brand of tasting glasses, has applied the codes of its previous Signature Wines & Champagne collections to the world of Mixology by creating 13 glasses to reflect both the boldest and most classic cocktails.

• Le Bar Le Gaspard unveils its new cocktail menu – See
• Sorrentini suggests rediscovering limoncello in a Spritz and Smash – See
• The C Spirits opens its rooftop – See
• The Frescu: the summer cocktail by Terra Vecchia and Anne-Lise – See
• Mathieu Teisseire innovates with two exotic new flavors: Green Chili and Masala Chaï Tea – See

💌 That's all folks!

That’s all for this issue! Many thanks again to Gabriel Boudier for their support! Don’t forget to sign up for the Wizard Awards 2024 by clicking below!

Likewise, if you enjoyed this newsletter, feel free to share it with your colleagues, friends, etc.!

On that note, have a great shift, and see you in a month for a new edition!