Club 39‘s Reena Rivera emerged victorious in a tense cocktail competition finals shootout with five other contenders at the Singapore leg of the La Maison Cointreau competition and will represent Singapore in the upcoming regional finals.
In a surprising result, junior bartender Reena Rivera – who at a tender age of 22 years old has only been bartending for some nine months – beat out five other far more experienced Singapore-based bartenders to win the honour of representing the country at the upcoming La Maison Cointreau Asia Finals, including her own mentor Mark Graham Thomas, head bartender at Club 39.
Known affectionately as Batgirl – a moniker bestowed on her by veteran mentor Thomas – Reena began her bartending career only in May 2015, and on Thomas’ encouragement joined the La Maison Cointreau competition at just three months into working as a bartender.
During the two challenges at the Singapore finals, Rivera’s cocktails – a Mount Gay rum, Farlernum, banana puree and mango juice-based cocktail called the Dampier’s Swizzle for the “Swizzilicious Challenge”, and a Giggle Water for the “Carafe Challenge” combining Cointreau, sweet vermouth, orange juice and peach and basil white tea soda that saw flavoured ice cubes melt into the drink- impressed the judges enough to land her top honours.
