Though a last-minute addition to the contest on Sunday afternoon, Shaun Belway had what it took to rise to the top of the cocktail ladder and win The Santa Barbara Independent‘s Silver Shaker Award.
A bartender at Relais de Paris and former pourer at The Hungry Cat, Belway’s winning drink was a cognac-based, vanilla-enhanced sparkling wine bubbler. For gaining the top score in this second annual professional mixology contest, Belway took home the Silver Shaker plus a bottle of Cutler’s Artisan Spirits vodka, two tickets on the Condor Express, gift certificates to Lazy Acres and Killer Shrimp, and a pass for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
Also competing this year was Ben Agnini, of Seven Bar & Kitchen in the Funk Zone, who made a rum-based drink called the “Thai Cooler”; Drew Morehouse, also of Seven, who made a vodka-based drink he called “The Autumn Goose;” and Morgan Moore of Casablanca, whose tequila-based drink was called the “Basil Blackberry Bomb.”