Meet Ben Kelly, the first ever winner of the Maker’s Mark Change Makers competition. Previously from Nine Lives in Bermondsey, he’s now joined the team at NoMad London, something he attributes to the confidence he gained from entering this, his first ever cocktail competition.
Before we hear from Ben about his experience, both before and during the competition, as well as his life changing winner’s trip to Kentucky, there’s the all-important matter of the competition and the brief…
Like we said, Ben is the first winner which means this was the launch of the Maker’s Mark Change Makers, a project that Charlotte Pederson, Maker’s Mark UK Ambassador has devised and been working on for over a year. Initially opened to UK bartenders, with the aim of going global the brief was for bartenders to propose a meaningful change in their bar or local hospitality community that will go on to have a lasting, positive impact – however big or small. And of course, they also had to create an original cocktail using a minimum of 35ml of any Maker’s Mark expression from the core range, inspired by the values of Star Hill Farm.
Ben did the job in spades. Read on to find out how…
Let’s start with the big question: why did you enter the competition?
After bartending for about a year, I knew that it was time to take things more seriously and challenge myself. I’d always thought about competitions but I’d never committed to them. It was my GM who was invited to the Change Makers session but he put me forward and told me that if I wanted to do it, I had to make sure that I actually did it. That was my kick up the bottom to take it seriously.
So, it was your GM who pushed you but what do you think really made you engage in it?
Everything about it. From the location [Silo, the world’s first zero waste restaurant in Hackney, London], to the tasting experience and then the three presentations from three influential people: Douglas McMaster chef and owner of Silo, Nathan Larkin, co founder of Speak in Code in Manchester and Charlotte Pederson, Maker’s Mark UK Brand Ambassador. The entire session was very engaging and made me realise how cool the industry can be and these kind of events are, so you just have to try things out, give it your all and see where it goes.
But what really made me engage was the workshop and presentations from Doug, Nathan and Charlotte, they were incredibly impactful. Although this was my first competition, I could sense that there was something different about this one – all three of them gave long, meaningful presentations and really wanted us to understand the brief and how important sustainability and local farming is to the brand.
What was your knowledge of Maker’s Mark before the competition?
All I knew was that it was a bourbon from Kentucky with a very cool red wax seal.
And what did you learn about Maker’s Mark from the seminars?
We were told about the story of Bill and Margie Samuels and how the brand was built on them being backed into a corner and having to make an important decision. He took the bold and brave move to burn the original recipe and start from scratch.
So they decided to bake bread using a variety of alternative grains and once they agreed on the one with the best overall flavour, they changed the recipe to include soft red winter wheat. Through the generations they’ve really cared about the land, using local ingredients that are farmed regeneratively – these points were really reinforced through Charlotte’s presentation.
She showed us lots of pictures of the facilities at Star Hill Farm and the purpose behind each of them, such as the multiple beehives that help the environment and the limestone water source that’s the most important ingredient in the bourbon. What I was left with was how family orientated the brand is and always has been and how Bill and Margie really cared about what they were doing.
And what were the key takeaways from Doug and Nathan?
Their presentations were about their respective sustainability journeys – how they deal with suppliers and how much wastage they get from packaging etc. It was mainly them talking about the creative steps and thinking outside the box techniques on how we can all be more sustainable.
For instance, Doug gets his wine delivered on a pirate ship which is pretty cool and Nathan doesn’t work with suppliers unless they can do business in a sustainable way. He went through how much wastage he had and all the different ways they use flavour in the bar, as well as things like if they have chipped glassware, they’ll use a blowtorch to smooth it out, so they minimise waste. These things were a significant part of the brief, so being able to pick their brains and for them to tell us how they operate, extract flavour and find beauty in their waste, really opened my mind and helped towards my drink creation.
Was this workshop one of the first like this that you’d been to?
Before this hospitality was very much a stepping stone for me, then I got behind the bar and I really started to enjoy it. However, I never went to industry events. But when I went to this session and started networking and learning, I thought ‘wow, this is really cool. I should do it more often’.
So yes, this was my first experience with something like this and also my first time entering a competition.
How did you use all of this newfound knowledge in your presentation and drink?
Having the three people in the same kind of field but approaching sustainability from different points of view, really helped to give me a good insight into how to approach the brief.
What I took from Nathan was repurposing chipped glassware and rethinking the use of certain ingredients.
From Doug it was all about using the waste products that still have flavour and trying to turn them into something new. And from Charlotte, it was all about the qualities, values and passion behind Maker’s Mark.
Now tell us about the drink itself.
The drink I decided on was a classic called the Gold Rush, which is made using honey, lemon and bourbon.
Obviously, I had my bourbon base covered, but for the rest of the ingredients, we given a voucher for £15 to use in Borough Market. Mine went towards English Bramley apples which I used to replace the lemon juice in my drink. After juicing and tasting, I adjusted the acids with citric acid and some mallic acid to balance everything out. With locality in mind and given the brief, I chose a honey harvested in Tower Bridge which is local to my home and work.
Doug had a lot of fermentations going on in his basement but I didn’t feel like I had time to make a wine, so I went with the fact that in our kitchen at Nine Lives, we have a lot of ingredients that have brines that are soaking in vinegar which are usually thrown away. With this in mind, I chose an escabeche with crispy carrots, some corn, jalapenos and cauliflower that I knew would work really well with the corn in the Maker’s Mark.
The drink was very nice and complex with the honey and the brine mix from the escabeche along with the apple and the bourbon but it was missing that ‘wow’ factor, the final ingredient that I felt it needed to bring it all together.
I also wanted to dial into the sustainability side of things more and that’s when I noticed that the tops of the carrots from the escabeche weren’t being used for anything. So I soaked them in the brine to pickle them, then I shook the carrot tops, including the long green stems, in the tin along with the other ingredients and it did the trick. It provided that essential top note that was missing.
Lastly, chef makes totopos which are sometimes left over at the weekend. So I blended them up, dehydrated them so they were very fine and salt-like and used it in a 360-rim around the glass, as I wanted the drink to be well balanced, no matter which side of the glass you sipped it from.
I called my drink the Golden Ticket.
There’s clearly a lot of thought that went into the drink. When did you know that you were happy enough to submit the recipe?
I was second guessing myself for most of it but I knew I wanted to make the most of every second of the allotted time, so I didn’t submit my entry until a day or two before the deadline. I really thought about it long and hard, I thought about the story behind it, where I sourced the ingredients, why I chose them and everything started to take shape.
I also picked people’s brains a lot and after tasting and making the drink something like 10 times in a day, I was pretty happy with it. But before submitting the recipe, I made sure I read through the brief another couple of times to make sure that I’d covered everything that was required. That was the main advice from my GM, who told me to make sure that I didn’t read the brief once or twice, but to re-read it again and again.
How did you prepare for the presentation part of the competition?
I’m not the most confident public speaker. I’m okay if it’s just two people sitting at the bar but getting up on stage or talking in front of people in school was never my strong point. But for this I thought, if I’m not going to do it now, I’m never going to do it.
I watched TED talks on public speaking, spoke to lots of people, watched videos of finalists and competitions and how they presented themselves. Originally, I was reading through my scripts listening to fast, heavy rock music to pump me up, then someone told me to tone it down, to breathe and listen to chill music, that way I would come across very clear and cohesively.
Presenting second in the competition and watching the competitors who came afterwards, I picked up a lot of things that I’ll definitely take on to my next competition.
Like what?
I realised I could have done much more beyond the drink. For instance, what Alex Goacher and Carrie Smith did for their proposals was incredible. Alex created a blog where he updates people on the most wasteful products and how to reuse them; Carrie had a brilliant idea around tea lights in bars and how much waste the holders created. She reached out to the local candle makers in Edinburgh to forge partnerships. It made me think that there are a lot of steps that you can do outside of just the liquid and garnish in what you can do to stand out.
Who did you think was your biggest competition and why?
From their overall presentations, I thought it would be Alex or Carrie because of the effort they made outside of the drink. Their presentations were great and their drinks were amazing.
You’ve told us why you thought they should win but how did it feel when you won?
I was in such shock. I was sitting next to Alex and I was getting ready to congratulate him on winning when Charlotte looked at me and said the person going through has a Golden Ticket! It was surreal. Once I had time to digest everything, the fact that I won proved to me that we can all do hard things if we put our minds to it. I wasn’t a confident public speaker, I haven’t been bartending for that long but I put the effort in.
So on to the trip, and give me three of your top highlights?
The highlights? There are so many… Going to Keeneland for the horse racing was an incredible experience, the whole day was great – the races themselves, meeting the American ambassadors, going on to Jon Carloftis’s [renowned American gardener] house after the races and then dinner after that was really fun. Later on that evening I went back out partying with the ambassadors and that was incredible – all in all it was a day that I’ll never forget.
Visiting the distillery and Star Hill Farm with Charlotte was also very special. She’s so much part of the team – everyone knows her there and you can just tell that this is so much more than a job for her, she really cares. She goes to work in the distillery on her days off to learn more about the production, so she’s really become part of the team. Because of her we were taken into rooms that most people wouldn’t get into and we had one-on-one conversations with all the top people. She really made sure we had an amazing experience.
Then the last one would be the genuine interactions, funny moments and building of the friendship that developed between myself, you and Charlotte. It seemed effortless, fun and really special.
I can’t stop thinking about Kentucky, I really didn’t think it would get me in that way, it was such an amazing experience.
What did you learn about Maker’s Mark that you can only know from being there?
There are a lot of stories about Louisville and the families of bourbon that you only find out by going out drinking with people from there, from hearing their stories firsthand. It’s not all about business and sales and numbers, there’s a lot of community. Of course, there’s a bit of competition but it’s healthy, there’s a friendly rivalry within the scene.
The example of Heaven Hill burning down and all of the other distilleries rushing to help and give them a hand back up, really touched me and showed me what bourbon and the bourbon industry is all about. As for Maker’s Mark and learning about its history, you really get to understand how much they care about the flavour and provenance, you get a true understanding of the analogy: “Margie makes you buy your first bottle and Bill makes you buy your second.” Being there just leaves you with pockets of joy.
Then once you go to Star Hill Farm and are surrounded by the nature and witness how they care about it, that really reinforces the message that they are stewards of the land and testament to what they want to achieve.
Why would you encourage others to take part next year?
I left the trip thinking that it really changed my life. I’ve always enjoyed my job but deciding to put that extra effort in has been invaluable. I pushed myself to limits that I thought I couldn’t do: like public speaking… During the presentation I thought my nerves would get the better of me, that my hands would start shaking but I did lots of research on how to calm myself down, I practised various breathing techniques and learned how to compose myself by adopting certain positions. All of these things really helped me to develop and prepare me to be the person I was on that day.
Entering the competition taught me that even if you haven’t been bartending for a long time or work at a Top 50 bar, it doesn’t mean that you can’t achieve these things – put some effort in and see where it can take you.
Being in the final and winning the competition has also given me the confidence to apply for a new job. After two interviews and trial shift, I started at the NoMad London.
Lastly, tell us about the hair?
For the past year I’ve been shaving and bleaching my hair. I was going to put the logo on my head for the competition but decided that would have been awkward if I didn’t win! But for the trip, I went for it! It wasn’t for attention or to say I’m the biggest Maker’s Mark fan or anything, but it was a real icebreaker – particularly at the races where I met Bill Samuels Jr and his son Rob Samuels who were both very polite about it. The hair made the whole trip even more special. I’m so glad I did it.
