Top image: Peter Labese @TheeGintleman

The fifth annual SA Bartending Accolades & Recognition (BAR) Awards honoured the fallen and surviving heroes of the local South Africa bar industry last night, just as the country emerges from lockdown and bars start reopening this month. 

 

In a quick recap, I was invited to do a bit of city crawl with Jody Francis, the Brand Ambassador for Inverroche, discovering the brand’s new Liqueur range, some of the best venues the Mother City has to offer, and taking a closer look at the home of Inverroche.

 

As a self-proclaimed drinks enthusiast, a prophet of the liquid-to-lips movement and a frequenter of the vegetative state of self-pity which follows; I was intrigued to hear that the team at the Inverroche Distillery were trying their hand at liqueur-making. A spirit category which seems to have remained somewhat stuck in a distant memory of those drink-slingers who came before us.

 

Fast becoming the Oscars of the South African bartending industry, the annual B.A.R. Awards, now in its fourth year, disclosed its shortlisted nominees yesterday.