Ten bartenders at the heart of Citadelle!

For this first Citadelle Guardians final, ten bartenders from across France came to the Château de Bonbonnet, the birthplace of Citadelle Gin.

From Bordeaux to Strasbourg, by way of Paris, Montpellier, La Rochelle, Rouen, Lyon and Nantes, the finalists came from establishments with very different personalities: Vahé M'aradamy of Le Bordelais, Raphaëlle Rosenthal of Danico, Paul Périé of Quatrième Tiers, Hugues Mathivet of La Maison des Ambassadeurs, Margot Crété of Le Prêchoir, Thomas Rotivel of L'Antiquaire, Amélie Heitz of Aedaen Speakeasy, Simon Day of Boubalé, Martin Gouguet of 19:33 and Nicolas Goradesky of The Cambridge Public House.

That mix of backgrounds, cities and styles set the tone from the start: Citadelle Guardians had assembled a remarkably rich snapshot of the French cocktail scene.

Over three days, they explored the places that make Citadelle what it is: our distillery, the Orangerie, and the juniper fields. We designed each day to go beyond the competition itself and give the bartenders real time to learn from each other and trade ideas. Citadelle Guardians rests above all on three values we hold dear: knowledge, creativity and community.

Know your product and your craft. Invent something that surprises. Talk, teach and get better by rubbing shoulders with your peers. The finalists put all three to work from start to finish.

A competition that doesn't do things by halves

To separate the ten finalists, we brought together a jury whose expertise covered every angle.

Around the table: Aurélie Panhelleux, co-founder of CopperBay Paris and CopperBay Lancaster Paris; Maxime Potfer, founder of Bar Povera in Nice; Laurence Marot, spirits and cocktail journalist for Barmag and Academy Chair for France for The World's 50 Best Bars; Ronan Fillatre, chef at George's in Saint-Martin-de-Ré; and Alexandre Gabriel, founder of Maison Ferrand and master distiller of Citadelle Gin.

Technique, gin knowledge, tasting, improvisation, creativity and storytelling: we tested the candidates from every angle.

From this first edition, Citadelle Guardians has already showed its ambition: a demanding competition that rewards a bartender's technical command as much as their personality and their take on gin.

"This first Citadelle Guardians final felt like a genuine exchange, a coming together around taste and food, with candidates who floored us with beautiful drinks and with my fellow judges. Having a talented chef on the panel gave all of us, judges and candidates alike, a fascinating perspective. I'm convinced that great spirits and great cocktails are a wonderful form of gastronomy." - Alexandre Gabriel, founder of Maison Ferrand and master distiller of Citadelle Gin

A win with a Normandy accent

At the end of the competition, Raphaëlle Rosenthal, bartender at Danico, came out on top and is now the very first Citadelle Guardians winner.

Nicolas Goradesky, of The Cambridge Public House in Paris, took second place, while Paul Périé, of Quatrième Tiers in Montpellier, rounded out the podium.

To win the jury over, Raphaëlle served her Trou Normand, a drink tied closely to where she comes from.

Her idea: rework that French classic, a shot of calvados served mid-meal to reset the palate, by swapping the calvados for Citadelle Original. Around the gin she built a cordial of Isigny cream, elderflower and cider vinegar, served with a green apple and wood sorrel sorbet.

Normandy runs through all of it: the apple, the Isigny cream, the cider, and above all the story Raphaëlle chose to tell.

"For my cocktail, I wanted to rework an old French classic, the trou normand. My goal was to keep its spirit and its structure while bringing it something more modern.

I replaced the calvados with Citadelle Original gin, whose aromatic profile brings more freshness and complexity while still sitting comfortably in the world of apple. To go with that base, I made a cordial from Isigny cream, elderflower and cider vinegar. The Isigny cream gives it roundness, the elderflower a floral note, and the cider vinegar balances everything out with a light acidity.

At the centre of the drink is an apple sorbet that I folded wood sorrel into. The plant brings a green freshness and a natural acidity that lift the apple and stretch out the finish.

The inspiration is also very personal, because it lets me pay tribute to my Normandy roots. The trou normand is part of my heritage, and reinterpreting it in a contemporary drink felt natural, using products and flavours that speak to that region." - Raphaëlle Rosenthal

Personal, technical and indulgent all at once, the drink captures exactly what Citadelle Guardians is after: start from what you know, build something new, then share it.

Trou Normand

Ingredients:

  • Citadelle Original: 30 ml
  • Isigny cream, elderflower and cider vinegar cordial: 40 ml
  • Green apple and wood sorrel sorbet

A community with room to grow

Podium aside, what this first edition really created was connections. For three days, ten bartenders traded techniques, experiences and ideas about the job, in a setting where high standards and good company went hand in hand.

"Past the competitive side, it's a really friendly competition, and it let all of us get to know the world of Citadelle much better. There was real warmth in the exchanges between candidates, and the judges struck a tone that was professional and relaxed at the same time." - Raphaëlle Rosenthal

For Raphaëlle, this now goes well beyond Bonbonnet. Her win takes her to Barbados, to our Stade's West Indies Rum Distillery, where she'll see another corner of our world and the home of the brand-new Citadelle Bajan.

And this is only the start. After this first French final, Citadelle Guardians is going to travel, bringing together an international community of bartenders around the same goal: learn, create, pass it on.

To all future Guardians: over to you!