Twelve candidates, six French bartenders, six Belgian professionals. But in the end, only one winner or rather a winner. Camille Pila, originally from Beauvais in the Oise, won the trophy for the best cocktail organized with calva. The event took place in Pennedepie (Calvados) this Sunday and Monday, organized by the calva club.
– Guillaume Belveze
The winning recipe
“It’s a great victory and anyway it was a great event organized with wonderful people. The fact of having won, I did not expect it at all, the level was high, everyone did a pretty crazy job“, explains Camille Pila after her victory. First, the participants had to take a photo of their invented cocktail. Then posted a short 30-second presentation video on the calva club website.
The selection was made on the audacity and creativity of the cocktail. The presentation of the video, the balance of the recipe and the professionalism. Then the selected bartenders (12 in total) were invited to spend two days in Normandy. “It was an incredible experience, it made me happy to work on this project, it was neither stress nor pressure but really fun“, adds Camille Pila.
– Guillaume Belveze
So with what recipe did she seduce the jury? “I think what made the difference was the calva that I used. I used a calva brut with a strength of 53°, maybe that’s what came out of the cocktail. The recipe was totally imagined. It’s this calva, a raw cider caramel, a cider vinegar and at the end I ended up with a little Nepita which is a Corsican plant, which is slightly minty and which comes with the apple“, details the big winner.
She won a check for 1,000 euros but above all the title of ambassador of calvados (the spirits, editor’s note).