It’s that time of year again folks.
Check your Facebook and Instagram check-ins, dust off your hangovers and try to piece together where you’ve been drinking over the last year, and who’s been slinging the best drinks because it’s time to vote in the 2017 Bartender Magazine Australian Bar Awards.
All the big categories are back again this year — Cocktail Bar of the Year, Bar of the Year and more — and once again we’ll see the great bar cultures popping around the country rewarded with the state awards.
We’ve added two new awards this year as well. The Best Sustainable Bar Program seeks to recognise those venues putting a big effort into sustainability, which has become something of a trend — and a trend we hope will become standard operating procedure.
The annual big night of the best in the business is on again this year on Tuesday the 19th of September at Doltone House, Jones Bay Wharf in Sydney.
This year, as always, the finalists will be determined by the trade’s vote. However, for the first time we’ll have a Finalists Panel to determine the winners of each category — kind of like a peer review, it’s just that these peers are the best bars in the country.
How does this work? Once the finalists have been announced in the July issue of the magazine, we’ll be in touch with all finalists to ask them to rank the bars and operators in the next round of voting (bars that are finalists in multiple categories will still receive just the one entry). The top ten in each of the 32 categories will then be reviewed and voted on by their peers — that is, the other finalists — to determine the winners in each category.
You won’t be able to vote in categories in which you’re nominated. We hope with this refinement to the awards we can further strengthen your voice in the process.
Voting is open now and until 11:59pm AEST May 31.