James Bond prefers his martini shaken, not stirred.

In the action-packed movie Hancock, Will Smith’s character’s drink of choice was malt whiskey.

Local bartenders Dylan Simons, Michael Fay, Javon Davis, Terry Talbot and Earl Pringle believe the perfect alcoholic drink should be a touch sweeter and involve a hint more creativity.

Their carefully constructed cocktails have been chosen as the finalists in Bermuda’s Absolut Best Bartender Competition, taking place on Sunday at Gosling’s Wine Cellar (by invitation only).

The overall winner will walk away with a trip to the Absolut vodka distillery in southern Sweden.

At age 19, Mr Simons is the youngest taking part in the event.

“I decided to enter the contest to see how I stack up against other bartenders on the Island,” he explained. “I take bartending fairly seriously and just wanted to see how I compare to others in the business.”

Mr Simons started off as a bar porter at Port O’Call two years ago and then jumped into the role of bartender when the position became available.

He wanted to create a “summery cocktail” with his drink, Kurrantea Kloud, and played around with a lemon hibiscus tea until he created the perfect blend of flavours.

“I would call it a well-balanced cocktail,” he said. “It’s sweet and it’s sour, but none of the flavours are really dominating. It’s balanced well and something nice and refreshing.”

Veteran bartender Mr Pringle was pushed to enter the competition by the maitre d’ at Beau Rivage.

“He knew I like to have fun and wasn’t expecting any resistance from me about the competition,” the 50-year-old said. Like the other competitors, Mr Pringle was asked to pick a blind flavour of Absolut vodka — he ended up getting mango.

He said: “From there I came up with what I thought would work with it and tried it out on a few friends and they thought I was onto something. It’s a little sweet, but not strong sweet. It’s just fruity and summery and has some bite from the ginger, lemon grass and mint I put in there.”

He said the key to creating a good alcoholic drink is getting a good feel for what people like.

He said: “It all comes down to experience because over time people’s palates change and if you are in the industry for a while you tend to see the changes. People will start to let you know what they like and what they don’t.”

If he wins this weekend’s competition, Mr Pringle said it will prove that he really knows what he’s doing.

“I will also get bragging rights with some of my mates,” he explained.

“I have some friends who every year we do a rum swizzle contest.

“When we first started I was winning each year, but the last couple of times my friend, who has never been a bartender, has won. The funny thing is I taught him how to make it, but now he has come up with some secret ingredient. If I win this I’ll have one over on him again.”

Harry’s bartender Mr Fay is hoping his dessert-inspired drink, The Son of Peach, has what it takes to win him the competition.

He said: “I think this would be a great thing to have on the resume as a career builder and I’d love to win seeing the prize is a trip to Sweden.

“I am really interested in visiting distilleries. In November I am going down to Kentucky to visit the Bourbon Trail with my brother and I plan to one day go to Scotland to see my favourite Scotch distilleries, so this would just be something great on top of that.”

Mr Fay said he usually gets inspiration for his drink recipes by looking through dessert cookbooks. After picking the Peach Absolut flavour he decided to mimic his drink after either a peach cobbler or peach sherbet to really get people’s attention.

“It’s not really sweet and has some nutmeg in it, which gives it a taste similar to eggnog, but not quite as thick,” he said. “It’s a little creamy, but also light.”

To see their full recipes, read the sidebar below.