SquareOne Holdings beverage director Steven Huddleston recently represented Chattanooga’s STIR restaurant at the 2025 El Dorado Global Cocktail Competition Finals, where he placed second in the international competition with his Three Arrows Manhattan.
He traveled to South America’s North Atlantic coast to Guyana for the competition, which was hosted by the El Dorado rum brand’s Guyanese distillery.
Huddleston competes in several major cocktail competitions throughout the year, which gives him the chance to get creative and to network with some of the best in the industry.
“It also helps me do cocktails that can’t necessarily be done at a store level or to do something really brain-oriented that isn’t always necessarily menu-related or guest-facing,” he says.
As the director of the United States Bartenders Guild for the state of Tennessee, Huddleston sees big cocktail competitions as opportunities to promote bartenders’ skills and encourage young bartenders to get into the industry and compete.
Most competitions have some sort of theme, which is announced before the event along with the parameters for cocktail entries, including type and number of spirits allowed, alcohol content and garnishes. Competitors then craft a cocktail to submit that fits the theme and meets the guidelines, he says. This year’s theme for the El Dorado competition was “family history and legacy.”
Huddleston flew to Miami to compete against four others in the eastern U.S. competition, and five bartenders competed in the western regional competition held in Los Angeles. Competitors had eight minutes each to present their drinks according to International Bartenders Association standards.
“It’s pretty much like white-glove service, presenting bottles at a 45-degree angle and making sure you don’t have overspills and so forth,” says Huddleston, who was the highest-scoring competitor for the eastern region and moved on to the finals in Guyana. In addition to the winner of the L.A. competition, global competition finalists included representatives from countries including Australia, Sweden, France, Italy, Jamaica and Guyana.
Competitors presented the same drink from their regional competition for the first leg of the global competition. For Huddleston, that drink was the Three Arrows Manhattan.
“It really represented my family and my legacy,” he says of the cocktail, which includes Carpano Antica vermouth to represent his family name’s origins in Bologna, Italy, and the Danish cherry liqueur Cherry Heering as a nod to his Norwegian grandfather.
For the next portion of the competition, bartenders were tasked with creating drinks inspired by the history and legacy of El Dorado rum using their choice of a fruit from the local market and one of the brand’s private barrels.
Huddleston’s Mashramani Muse features fresh pineapple and papaya, freshly pressed sugar cane and El Dorado Port Mourant, produced from a double wooden pot still — the only still of its kind in use today, he says.
Find the Three Arrows Manhattan locally at STIR — which doesn’t offer the Mashramani Muse due to the limited availability of its ingredients — or try your hand at making slightly modified versions of these award-winning cocktails at home (without the only-found-in-Guyana ingredients, of course).
Bartending expert from STIR Chattanooga restaurant takes you behind the scenes of a cocktail competition
(Please note that these drink recipes have been slightly modified from the original award-winning recipes for ease of creating them)
Three Arrows Manhattan
What you need:
2 ounces El Dorado 12-year rum
1/3 ounce Carpano Antica vermouth
1/2 ounce Cherry Heering
2 dashes cherry bitters
1 dash black pepper tincture
Glassware: coupe
Ice: none
Garnish: 3 brandied cherries skewered like an arrow
What you do:
Combine all ingredients and add garnish.
Mashramani Muse
What you need:
1 1/2 ounces El Dorado Cask Strength Single Still Port Mourant Rum
1 ounce freshly pressed sugarcane juice
1/3 ounce fresh papaya and pineapple juice (1:1 ratio)
1/4 ounce lime juice
1/4 ounce black pepper pot syrup
2 dashes cocoa extract
Glassware: Collins
Ice: 1″ x 1″ cubes
Garnish: Guyanese pineapple leaf and arrow-shaped papaya skin
What you do:
Combine all ingredients in a shaking tin filled with ice. Cover and shake until well-mixed. Strain into ice-filled Collins glass and add garnish.