By Emeka Anokwuru

Three Nigerian barmen have emerged winners in the maiden edition of Jabulani cocktail competition organised to announce the new make over bottle for Amarula cream.

Ferdinand Obule of La Cour Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos came tops at the end of the three-month competition. He beat his colleague, Razak Yusuf also of La Cour to the second place while Anthony Oriyomi of Shadez Lounge came third.

Speaking shortly before presenting cheques to the winners, Mr. Roelof Stoltz, Country Manager, Distell, producers of Amarula, said the competition was organised to usher in the new bottle, which looks like the face of an elephant, and to also discover those Nigerian barmen who are talented and have the knack to mix a variety of cocktails using Amarula.

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He explained that the move was to sustain the image of Amarula, and also to reduce faking of the product, now considered as South Africa’s gift to Africa.

“Amarula recently had its bottle upgraded to a perfectly intricate detailed bottle, shaped by Africa called the Jabulani bottle. To introduce this bottle to the bars in Nigeria, we embarked on a 3-month nationwide cocktail competition where the stakes were high and everyone won a prize. The competition involved 60 outlets selected from three major cities in Nigeria, namely Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja and held between April and June 2017.

“Two barmen per outlet were chosen by the bar owners to make and serve the cocktails which were purchased by consumers. We created a polling page on our Facebook where we uploaded the profile of the barmen and the consumers who bought the cocktails got to vote for their favourite barman,” Stoltz explained.

The overall winner received a cash prize of N100,000, second position got N80,000 and third position smiled home with N50,000.