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On 24th February 2026, the International Bartenders Association (IBA) returned to where it all began, Torquay, United Kingdom, to celebrate its 75th anniversary with a landmark Diamond Jubilee event. Seventy-five years after its founding in 1951, the IBA gathered in the very city that witnessed the birth of a global movement, a movement that would transform bartending from a trade into a respected international profession. The celebration took place in Torquay, the coastal ci

Over 3,000 cocktails were shaken, more than 600 recipes, with bartenders coming from all over the British Empire, which in 1934 still spanned much of the globe. These few words already give a sense of the success of the very first Cocktail Competition organised by the UKBG, which also marked its foundation. The official British Empire Cocktail Competition was open to all “American bartenders in the British Empire”. ‘American bartenders’ was the term used to describe professio

As we head into the final stages of the UKBG’s National Cocktail Competition 2021, we sit down with UKBG Curator, Luca Rapetti, to learn a little bit more about our final’s category theme – the Gin Fizz – an intriguing cocktail category with over a century of history. “ Waiter, bring me a Gin Fizz And make it stiff! One Gin Fizz Every ten minutes is the proper thing This beastly weather” Such was the first accompanying description of the Gin Fizz in an early recipe, dati