How to Succeed in World Class 2025 – With Kate McGraw

Jan 15, 2025

Whether or not you’ve entered a bartending competition before, if you’re looking to join a community of like-minded bartenders, develop your skills and push your career to the next level, World Class is the perfect competition for you. It will challenge your knowledge and creativity with the Diageo Brand Ambassador team on hand to provide support and feedback on your entry. The Diageo Bar Academy Roadshow Feat. World Class will also be running nationwide in February which will feature training on some key skills needed to succeed in World Class.

With all this in mind, we caught up with Kate McGraw, World Class Ambassador for Australia, to get her advice on approaching the entry round.

What are three of your top tips for a successful first-round entry?

Read the brief, read the judging criteria, and then read it again.
It tells you exactly what we’re looking for and how you’ll score the most points. It’s really easy to go down a creative rabbit hole for a World Class entry, so making sure you’re using the brief and criteria as a framework sets you up for success.
Talk to your local Brand Ambassador – or me!
We’re available to talk through the brief, come down to your venues and chat to the whole team, give insights on your specific entries and even help you proof read your submission. That’s one of the reasons why we have so many judges for the opening round – if one of us helps you, we step out of the judging for your drink so we’re not biased – but we also know the most about what you’ll be judged on!
Make your drink.
This might seem like a no-brainer, but we can always tell if this is a recipe that hasn’t been made before. It’s also the easiest way for you to finesse it without spending ages pouring over a Word document!

What are three of the most common mistakes people make? (Outside of not doing the above, of course!)

Skipping steps in your recipe.
I can assure you, I’ve done my fair share of rotovapping and fermentation and know how it works, but we can only judge based on what’s written on paper. We can’t assume you’ve done a process if you haven’t written it down when we’re judging!
Not explaining why – why a technique links to a concept, why a concept links to the brand or brief or anything in between. Use the judging criteria as a structure to shape your story!
Writing too much, or not enough.
The first round is judged on paper, and with the rarest of exceptions, anything that takes eighteen pages to explain can probably be explained in one. Similarly, two sentences are usually not enough to grasp a whole concept. We’re not looking at how well you write, we’re looking at whether you’ve hit the judging criteria or not.

If you’re interested in attending the Diageo Bar Academy feat. World Class Roadshow register your interest here: https://form.typeform.com/to/KdoY7u9X

If you have any questions about World Class, you can reach out to Kate via Instagram @katelikescocktails

Instagram: @diageobarac
Facebook: Diageo Bar Academy