Ballito mixologist Richie Nahkala claims silver at World Class bartending comp

Ballito’s Richie Nahkala mixed, shook and cooked his way to second place in the South African Diageo World Class bartending competition last week.

The World Class event is the largest bartending competition worldwide and is considered the equivalent to national championships in all participating countries.

Nahkala and Jason Andrews, also a Ballito resident, were the two KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) representatives this year who took on nine other mixologists from around South Africa in Johannesburg.

The duo have been friends since Nahkala moved to Ballito two years ago and trained together for the event.

Nahkala is the bar manager at Alchemy Ballito while Andrews works as a beverage innovator at Liquid Concepts.

Both met their pre-competition goal of qualifying for the final six which was decided after day two of the four-day competition.

“We both decided that the top six would be a great result, because KZN has been so underrepresented in the finals stage over the past decade. We wanted to show that KZN is still a vibrant scene alongside Joburg and Cape Town,” said Nahkala.

On day one, competitors faced a speed pouring challenge where they had to mix eight original drinks in six minutes.

Day two was mastery day, where the bartenders were tested on their knowledge of herbs, botanicals, liqueurs, whiskey blends and classic cocktails.

The field was cut from 11 to six for the finals stage, where those left in the running were given R10 000 to create a pop-up bar themed after a Mexican cantina.

Nahkala drew inspiration from the similarities between the indigenous Mexican culture and Zulu culture of his adopted province, with the use of textiles, clay pots and traditional ingredients all included.

“I tried to fuse the two through the drinks I prepared. First I created a Michelado cocktail, which typically uses Mexican beer, but used a version of umqombothi instead. I also made my take on a Sangrita, which is a spiced tomato cocktail, but used a homemade clarified chakalaka as the base,” he said.

“Then I took inspiration from the Star Wars cantina for the design. The intention was to show that even though Mexico and South Africa may be galaxies apart, there are many similarities to celebrate.”

Nahkala dressed up as a Jedi and had a stormtrooper in front of the bar for good measure.

Judges were suitably impressed by the design and execution of the bar, which helped Nahkala to second place overall behind Johannesburg’s Julian Short.

“I’m really happy with the result and hope the performances from Jason and me shine a positive light on the KZN industry. I have to thank Jason for all of his mentorship and advice through the process. It was our teamwork that helped us both achieve great results.”

Only the top three were announced, so Andrews finished between fourth and sixth, itself a fantastic achievement.

Short will go on to represent South Africa in the world championships in Sao Paolo later this year.

It was incorrectly reported in last week’s edition that the top two qualify for the world championships. It is only the gold medalist.

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