Diageo Hosts 'World Class Korea,' the World's Largest Bartending Competition

Over 10,000 Bartenders from 60 Countries Compete in Global Bartending Event
Winner to Represent Korea at 'World Class Global'

Diageo Korea announced on the 17th that it will host the world's largest bartender competition, the '2025 World Class Korea,' and is recruiting participants.

Now in its 16th year, World Class is hosted by Diageo to discover the next generation of bartenders and is the largest global bartending competition with over 10,000 bartenders from more than 60 countries worldwide. The 2025 World Class Korea will feature a creative cocktail competition under the theme 'REVIVE:2025' to crown the best bartender in Korea.

This year, unlike previous years, a written test will be introduced for multi-layered evaluation, promising a more systematic competition. Through this, participants will be assessed not only on their cocktail-making skills but also on their overall knowledge of alcoholic beverages and brand understanding in depth.

World Class Korea serves as the starting point for the journey to become the world’s best bartender. The single final winner with the highest score in this competition will earn the right to represent Korea at the World Class Global competition held in Toronto, Canada, this coming September.

The 2025 World Class Korea will proceed through the first round, second round, and final challenge. The first round, a written test, will be held on the 16th of next month. The 40 participants who pass the written test will advance to the second challenge, where they will present cocktails embodying their own philosophy. The second challenge, held over two days from June 4th to 5th, will have each participant showcase their creatively developed cocktails in front of the judges to compete. The final 10 finalists selected from the second challenge will fiercely compete in the final challenge held on July 9th. Applications for the competition are open until April 13th.

Sung Joong-yong, Senior Brand Ambassador of Diageo Korea, said, "Diageo discovers talented bartenders worldwide every year through the World Class program and focuses on promoting 'fine drinking,' which signifies a high-quality drinking culture." He added, "This competition will inspire the bartending culture anew through Diageo’s innovative products optimized for bartenders’ creative cocktail recipe development."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.