For the second consecutive year, Bennett Awards produced a custom trophy for the ABSOLUT Vodka “Best Bloody in America” contest. This competition, sponsored by ABSOLUT Vodka and Thrillist, was created to find the best Bloody Mary in the United States. As the first step in this competition, top bartenders from across the country submitted their Bloody Mary recipes. Next, the competition moved to the state level. The top recipes were posted on a special Facebook page, and the public voted on their favorite entries. The recipe receiving the most votes in each state was then entered in the national competition, and again votes were tallied on a national Facebook page.
As the final step in the competition, the bartenders receiving the most votes competed against each other in the Best Bloody in America Finale Event, a live competition hosted at the DL on New York’s Lower East Side. The national award winner was Dennis Sutton, a bartender at Salinger’s in Rochester New York. As the prize for his winning entry, the “Sutton Bloody”, Sutton won a five-day trip for two to Sweden, as well as a custom recognition trophy designed by Bennett Awards specifically for this event.
This is the second straight year a custom trophy created by Bennett Awards has been used for this competition. In 2011, Bennett Awards created the initial custom design used to create these unique achievement trophies. The key component of these trophies is a pewter sculpture award shaped like a Bloody Mary in a glass. The pewter glass features a raised relief of the ABSOLUT Vodka logo and tagline. Other unique pewter elements are incorporated into the trophies to create a realistic Bloody Mary design, including a stalk of celery, olives, and a lime wedge. These pewter trophies are mounted on a black marble base that features personalized silver-fill engravings of the ABSOLUT logo, the competition name, and the date of the finals.