Hi, Friends of Cocktails! How does one become a Master of cocktails? Today we’ll take a look at what it took to win the FIOL Master 2024 competition and we’ll of course try the amazing winning cocktail, as prepared by the winner, Andrea Napoli. It was a wonderful event and we’ll break down the challenges faced by the competitors at the master final in Treviso, Italy.
This cocktail was the pinnacle of my collaboration with FIOL Prosecco this year, where bartenders in Toronto, Montreal, London and Amalfi made their creations for a chance to compete for the title of FIOL Master 2024. Four deserving winners were faced with two challenges, but we’ll talk more about that in our upcoming issues of the Cocktail Times newsletter, featuring a segment from the champion himself, so subscribe to that here on kevinkos.com if you’re interested.
You’ll be able to learn from the segments, whether you’re planning on joining a cocktail competition, or if you just want to improve your mixology skills, so stay tuned! But now let’s get into making the winning cocktail, which started with a little twist. Each competitor received a box of ingredients from a winning cocktail created by another champion in their regional competition.
And they had 3 hours to create a winning formula that would convince the judges, myself included, that they deserve to be crowned champion. There were different approaches - some started prepping ingredients straight away, some went into a notebook to create a plan and read up on the ingredients they were presented with. Something that helped too was a book we’ve featured on the channel before: The Flavor Matrix.
They were all presented with a copy to help them in their exploration of flavors, during the competition and beyond. Alongside that, the winner, Andrea, was presented with a box containing green beans, jasmine tea, Creme de Mure Blackberry Liqueur, fresh blackberries, and Fiol Prosecco Extra Dry. This were ingredients used by Laurie for her winning cocktail in London, which he turned into a liqueur, cordial, and foam.
First component Andrea focused on were green beans, which he turned into a Green Beans Liqueur, so let’s start with that as well. It’s Cocktail Time!
Green Bean Liqueur
● 100g Green Beans
● 100g Water
● 50g Sugar
● 150mL · 5oz 40% ABV Vodka
Pressed for time, Andreas decided to blend together 100g of green beans and 100g of water. Once that’s well blended it’s time to strain it through a cloth filter. We have the flavor, now we need the alcohol content and the sweetness. For every 100mL of green beans water we’ll add 100mL of your classic vodka, at 40% ABV, and 40g of sugar.
Stir this in using your preferred method, which for me is using a magnetic stirrer. You can get yours here for hands-free liqueurs, and once that’s all dissolved and mixed it’s time to bottle our DIY Green Bean Liqueur. With its vegetal notes it will do a great job of highlighting FIOL’s green apple notes. Excellent idea on Andrea’s part.
Next, the Jasmine tea component. Here Andrea decided to make a Jasmine tea cordial.
Jasmine Tea Cordial
● 8g Jasmine Green Tea
● 200g Hot Water
● 200g Sugar
● 3g Citric Acid
First weigh out the tea and pour over the hot water. Let it steep for 3 minutes and once strained you’ll see the tea soaked up some of the liquid so I’ll fill it back up to 200mL. Then, to make it a cordial we need to add the sugar and acids, and mix until dissolved and that’s the Jasmine tea cordial done. Floral, sweet, tart, and delicate!
Lastly, let’s make the Blackberry foam. To make it Andrea used FIOL Rose, Creme De Mure Blackberry Liqueur, blackberry water, honey, xanthan gum and methyl cellulose.
Blackberry Foam
● 125g Water
● 125g Blackberries
● 200mL · 6.66oz Flat FIOL Rose
● 200mL · 6.66oz Blackberry Liqueur
● 100g Acacia Honey
● 1g Xanthan Gum
● 3g Methylcellulose
Firstly, make sure our Prosecco Rose is without any bubbles, which I’ll do with a magnetic stirrer. While that’s going I’ll prepare blackberry water, by blending together equal weights of blackberries and water. You don’t need to blend it for too long, or it will be harder to strain, which we’ll do through a cloth filter, and then you’ll have blackberry water.
We’ll now blend the liquid components together with the powders, and if they’re hard to find we have partnererd with Special Ingredients in the US/UK and Europe so that you can get them too! So into the blender add 100mL or 3.33oz of the blackberry water, followed by the rest of the ingredients. Blend for at least a minute for the powders to fully dissolve into the liquid. Then transfer this to a cream whipper and charge it with a single Nitrous Oxide cartridge.
Give the container a good shake, then place it in the fridge to fully chill. With all of that done Andrea only added two more key ingredients - FIOL Prosecco and saline solution, so let’s build the cocktail to which he gave the wonderful name, ColorFIOL.
ColorFIOL
● 95g FIOL Prosecco
● 22.5mL · 0.75oz Green Bean Liqueur
● 22.5mL · 0.75oz Jasmine Tea Cordial
● 2 drops 20% Saline Solution
● Blackberry Foam
To make the cocktail I’ll start with a wine glass, filled with ice. Place that on the scale, as I always suggest when you want to be really precise with sparkling ingredients, and add the Prosecco. Being precise is extra important when you have to make the same cocktail for all the judges. Now add the Green Bean Liqueur, Jasmine Tea Cordial, and saline solution before giving the cocktail a gentle stir and a lift with a barspoon.
Now it’s time for the crown of the cocktail, the Blackberry Foam. Truly ColorFIOL! It has a lovely fruity and floral aroma. The foam has just the right viscosity so that it can be enjoyed with the drink, enhancing all the flavors that prosecco brings, so you’ll be able to pick up FIOL’s floral, fruity, rich and spiced notes, with even hints of red berries and citrusy notes from the Rose expression of FIOL in the foam.
If you want to see the cocktail being made by Andrea Napoli, make sure to see the episode in full on YouTube. There we have some beautiful shots from Treviso shot by the Cocktail Time videographer, Sašo. Robi was at home, celebrating the birth of his second son, so congrats to Robi, and I hope you enjoy this wonderful cocktail.
Make sure you follow me and FIOL Prosecco on instagram so you don’t miss when the entries open for the FIOL Master 2025, and I’ll see you next time. Cheers and stay FIOL!
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