Jesus Gomez is the Bartender of the Year, for the Bacardi Cruise Competition

Manuel Luis Domingo, is the Chef of the Year, in the Bacardi Cruise Competition

Bacardi honors cruise creations
by chefs and bartenders

“It just came into my mind, and I created it,” said Manuel Luis Domingo, chef at Princess Cruises about his creation: a fruit sushi made with cut fruit, rice pudding and Bacardi’s Raspberry Coulis which earned him the title of Chef of the Year in this year’s Bacardi Cruise Competition whose winners were announced Sunday April 13 at the Marine Hotel Association event in Hollywood, Florida.

Jesus Gomez, of Celebrity Cruises had a similar “eureka” experience and decided to name his highball cocktail The Eureka which combined Bombay Sapphire gin with Triple sec, white cranberry juice and cucumber to earn him the title of Bartender of the Year.

This is the third year that Bacardi has sponsored the event. Winners receive a cash award and scholarship awards from the Marine Hotel Association. The competition is organized by Bacardi’s Travel Retail Division and by Deborah Golden of GoLDEN Speaks Out, a beverage marketing, consulting and event-planning firm based in Coral Gables, Florida.

To enter the competition, cruise and ferry line chefs and bartenders submitted recipes that used at least one Bacardi product in preparation. In the three years since the competition was launched, entries from the world’s cruise and ferry lines increased dramatically and this year, organizers say more than 800 recipes were evaluated before selecting the five culinary finalists and five cocktail finalists.

This following is a list of the winners for each of the respective categories: