Netflix is set to shake up the bar and booze worlds with Drink Masters, a reality series from Canada premiering October 28 as competing mixologists infuse and blend their liquid art to create new takes on historic cocktails. .
Similar to other reality competition shows, 12 contestants from across North America have to complete challenges against the clock, with one person receiving their marching orders each episode until an Ultimate Drink Master is crowned. But what can be done with a skillet and stove in Top Chef or Chopped can apparently also be done with a shaker and bar in Drink Masters as bartenders shake, stir and pour elixirs to create crazy cocktails, says the executive producer of Marblemedia, Matt Hornburg.
“It's not just about what's in the glass, but what appears around the glass as part of that experience. And it's as much about your palate as it is about the aromas,” explains Hornburg. After the success of its Blown Away and Restaurants on the Edge series on Netflix, Marblemedia launched the streaming giant into a cocktail competition series that's less direct than American reality competition series and more focused on the tactile adventure of make cocktails
“You need something cinematic, with rich, uplifting, distinctive characters who are passionate and have a slightly unique quality that's different from a lot of other shows, something more upbeat, that's true to our company values,” says Hornburg.
“As Canadians, it's not lost on us to make a reality competition show that has a different perspective than a show made outside of the US. There's room in this environment for all these different perspectives and that's what people is tuning in,” he said. he adds about the success of Blown Away.
Drink Masters was co-created with Tim Warren (Bar Rescue), who brought the concept to the Canadian independent producer. Marblemedia executive producer Mark Bishop insists the series is the product of a production company based in Canada, but operating as an American company focused on a global market into which Netflix and other streaming players are expanding.
“We are a Canadian company, but our goal has been to work closely with the US. We are there. We have someone based in Los Angeles, we are there, working and selling directly to streamers in the US. We are operating as an American company and a local company while we work with them, and at the same time we take advantage of every dollar that can go out from Canada and we've done that by creating Canadian content," Bishop tells THR.
Netflix's Drink Masters, unveiled Thursday, features mixologists hailing from celebrated bars in New York City, San Francisco, Las Vegas and elsewhere, most of whom are veterans of the cocktail competition circuit. The series is filmed in Hamilton, Ontario, on a giant soundstage with nine cameras focused on two long bars, velvet fabrics, chandeliers, bar stools, floor-to-ceiling shelves of bottled spirits, and a kitchen to which the contestants They always run from one side to another. for the key ingredients.
The cocktails are marked by taste, presentation and how the palates of the two judges, Frankie Solarik and Julie Reiner, are reacting that day. And the hard work of making that rarefied passion for cocktails catch on with normal viewers falls to series host Tone Bell, a comedian who played John Levy opposite Andra Day in The United States vs. Billie Holiday by Lee Daniels.