Briton has competition in a flap at cocktail event in Mexico
Jamie Jones has wowed judges at the glittering World Class event.
A British barman has used augmented reality to recreate the flapper girl spirit of the 1920s in a cocktail.
Jamie Jones hopes spicing up an ordinary-looking drink using a tablet to present viewers and drinkers with dancers swaying around his concoction will net him the title of the world’s best barman. His classic lime green gin-based mixture was transformed using Pokemon Go-style creativity and it wowed judges at the glittering World Class event in Mexico City.
Mr Jones, 34, said: “It is just fun, cocktails should be fun, getting people talking, sharing their experiences.”
The flamboyant northerner was brought up in Yorkshire, Cheshire and the Middle East during a nomadic childhood. He was born in Chester but went to school in Ilkley, West Yorkshire.
Mr Jones is now based in London after rising from glass collector to be named the UK’s top bartender over 13 years and said his latest innovation was about embracing what consumers wanted.
A tablet or smartphone was pointed at an innocuous-looking lime-coloured liquid and transported the viewer to inter-war splendour, with girls in flapper-style dresses appearing to dance around and into the glass, and confetti raining down.
One judge said: “I have never seen anything like that before.”
Mr Jones said it was about using technology to enhance consumers’ experiences in one of the most advanced markets in the world. London has been a centre for the cocktail industry for decades.
Mr Jones said: “It is not just British bartenders, it is the world’s bartenders, everybody brings something to the table. It just creates something wonderful.”
Sheffield native Jason Crawley, 47, is helping judge the competition, where 55 entrants from around the world are competing.
He said Britain is still a country where rum and coke is the most popular drink, but with the post-war rise in prosperity, parts of London and New York have become gentrified and produced more discerning consumers. He acknowledged not everybody could make drinks like those whipped up this week.
“Cocktails are like hot rods, they have display models and then when they get on to the street it is something a little bit more practical. At the Geneva car show you see a concept car and it will eventually make its way on to the street but it won’t resemble what it was, it will have been made efficient and approachable.”
