World Coffee In Good Spirits, the competition combining coffee and booze, is going to Berlin and will feature a number of national barista champions!
BY ASHLEY RODRIGUEZ
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Cover photo courtesy of Jordan Sanchez for World Coffee Events
World Coffee In Good Sprits is coming to Berlin! Just weeks ago, coffee professionals from across the globe gathered in Boston to vie for top honors in both the World Barista and World Brewers Cup Championships, and now the rest of this year’s coffee competitions will take place during World of Coffee in Berlin, including the World Coffee In Good Spirits Championship.
“Sharing the stage in Berlin is the World Coffee In Good Spirits Championship, which promotes innovation in beverage recipes combining coffee and alcohol,” the World Coffee Events website states. “The preliminary round is split into a stage round, where competitors produce two identical hot drinks, and two identical cold drinks, and the Spirit Bar round. The six competitors with the highest preliminary round scores will compete in the final round, where competitors produce two Irish Coffees and two coffee-and-alcohol-based designer drinks.”
This was the first year that Coffee in Good Sprits, or CIGS as it is often referred to, took place in the United States. We’ve been chronicling the history of the competition—from its origins as a way to preserve the tradition of the Irish Coffee to its debut in the U.S. this year—in an ongoing series, and we’re sure this year’s competition will continue to provide exciting and new approaches to coffee and spirit combinations.
The field of competitors is fierce, including folks like the 2018 World Barista Champion Agnieszka Rojewska of Poland, the current World CIGS champion Dan Fellows of the United Kingdom, and last year’s German National Barista Champion Nicole Battefeld. It’s not uncommon for former Barista Competition and Brewers Cup champions to throw their hat into the CIGS competition, and we’re sure we’ll see more champions in other coffee competitions make the jump to CIGS in the future.
The competition will take place June 6-8 during World of Coffee. You can check out the list of competitors here. Until then, check out some of these recipes from former competitors or get inspired by words and advice from Victor Delpierre, the 2013 CIGS winner from France.
