After a week of mixing cocktail challenges and Queenstown's extreme activities, the eighth annual 42 Below Cocktail World Cup 2012 convoy has left for the final in Auckland tonight.
The 21 international bartenders, including a team from New Zealand, organisers and support crew arrived in the resort on Monday and the majority immediately strapped on a harness for a bungy jump.
On the first day of challenges, Team USA won both the Mystery Box challenge, in which they had four minutes to create a cocktail using a minimum of six ingredients from a list of obscure items, and the Punch challenge which gave them seven minutes to create a winning drink.
The first challenge was staged on a mountain-top in the Remarkables on Tuesday morning and the Punch challenge was held at the Athenaeum Hall in Arrowtown on Tuesday night and attended by local guests and bartenders.
The United States team met on the flight to New Zealand.
On Wednesday, the teams experimented with essential oils and were challenged to either incorporate the high-temperature distilled oils, called hydrosols, with their cocktail, or rinse their martini glasses with with the oil or vapour.
US brand ambassador and host Boris Saciuk said team Australia won the challenge with their lemon verbena, cardamom and mandarin infused drink.
"They made a very delicate drink".
"Some of them had a lot more flavour of the essential oils and the judges chose theirs because they achieved a good balance."
One of the judges, Jacob Briars, said the distillation challenge was "amazing" because it was at the heart of every bartender.
Yesterday, the teams departed for Auckland, where they would be preparing to produce their signature drink at the final challenge tonight in a secret location, which Mr Saciuk said would replicate an entire laboratory to fit with the "lab experiment" theme.
Mr Saciuk said the New Zealand team, comprising Guy Jacobson and Gian Jesus, of Wellington, and Barney Toy, of Auckland, had brought "a lot of energy to the competition" with their superhero costumes and nicknames.
All teams had been earning points in the lead up to the finale and this would determine the running order of the contestants.
