[:it]Grand Cocktail Gala[:]
[:it]It's back, and it's grown up. Last year it was the “Gran Galà dell'Aperitivo”, this year it's the “Gran Galà del Cocktail”, the event organised by Silver Class and To Be that puts bartenders and their art, the increasingly talked about mixology, at the centre of the stage. This is the right time, you can see it all the time: the years in which anyone could take a pestle and a sprig of mint, make a mojito (maybe badly) and proclaim themselves a bartender are over. Today this profession has finally assumed the dignity it deserves as an art made of study, creativity, research and a lot of experience, the kind needed to distinguish the spices in a gin, for example, or to understand which flavour to pair a smell with. This is the “game” of mixology, and no bartender will be offended to hear it called a “game”, because to do this job you have to be a bit of a child in the purest sense of the word: you have to see what doesn’t yet exist in order to create it, you have to love colors, taste, mix flavors until they taste good and let your imagination run free without ever losing sight of it.
On the evening of April 20, the art of mixology returns to the stage at the Gran Galà del Cocktail, which this year has chosen as its location the NH Lingotto Tech, the Hotel housed inside the former Fiat Lingotto factories redeveloped by the great architect Renzo Piano. The strong historical identity and distinctly modern character make the NH Tech a perfect setting to host a show on contemporary mixology and future trends. The event will open with an aperitif designed by Daniele Giolitto, Chef of the Hotel Restaurant, and will continue with a “food experience” to discover some of the greatest food and wine excellences of Piedmont and beyond.
The focus of the evening will be the competition between five big names in contemporary mixology: Yuri Gelmini (Milan, Surfer's Den); Nicola Ruggiero (Bari, Katiuscia people & drink); Marco Macelloni (Lucca, Franklin '33); Roberto Rossi (Milan); Carola Abrate (Turin). The five big names will compete in a competition that will combine technique with feeling, an unprecedented proposal in the context of mixology competitions: each bartender will go on stage to reveal to the public the most important cocktail of his life, also explaining the reasons behind it. He will then have to study and create a reinterpretation of that cocktail that will not only be the object of the competition but also one of the drinks that will be served at the bar together with the original that inspired it. An exceptional jury whose names have not yet been revealed will have the difficult task of decreeing the winner of this second edition of the Gran Galà, an event that this year too seems to have every intention of making people talk about it for a long time.[:]
