Aashi Bhatnagar Is the Country's Best Bartender

In an industry woefully short of women, the winner of the 2023 Diageo World Class, the Oscar of bartending competitions could provide a much-needed inspiration

- Vikram Achanta

Diageo World Class is a bartending competition unlike any other. Aashi Bhatnagar, this year's winner from Pune's Cobbler and Crew calls it the 'Oscars of Bartending', but to my mind, having had a ringside view this year, it's more like the decathlon; putting contestants through a series of challenges to emerge triumphant from, laurel wreaths on their heads. 

More than 300 cocktails from bartenders across India are carefully narrowed down to a Top 100. These Top 100 are then given 6 cocktail challenges, each linked to a unique brand and theme out of which 3 need to be responded to and run as a menu in their bar for a week. During this period, a 2-person jury visits each outlet across India and tastes and scores the cocktails (a good job if you can get it!).

The Top 15 are thrown into the cauldron of a 2-day finale, where they're quizzed, prepare a carbonated Johnnie Walker highball, create a signature serve, run the gauntlet of a media round, and assigned 4 cocktails to make in 6 minutes in the Speed round.

It's no wonder that the bartender, who made it all through this has an Instagram handle of @Pocket_Dynamyte, a sobriquet coined for her during her stint at Aasmana at the Ritz Carlton, Pune. So inspired, she named her signature serve for last year's World Class as the Pocket Dynamite, and the story of that cocktail is a whole separate article in itself. Aashi was one of only two contestants in this year's Top 15 who also reached the Top 12 last year and who narrowly lost last year.