You never quite know what to expect when you agree to test drinks made by novice bartenders.Judges were asked to sample a wide range at a student bartender competition last week a thick, pink drink reminiscent of Pepto Bismol and a sweet blue concoction of Hypnotic, pineapple juice and Blue Curacao liqueur were both on offer.Ten students enrolled in the Bermuda College’s PACE bartending course put their skills to the test by making a signature drink. They were critiqued on everything from the drink’s name, appearance and flavour, to their overall methods of mixing.Some appeared shaky, while others confidently stepped to the bar and put into practice skills learned from hospitality veteran and course instructor Irving Raynor.The clear winner, with a near perfect score, was 19-year-old Jecoye Francis. His drink had a rather controversial name, Passionate Sex, and utilised a delicious blend of fresh passion fruit, pineapple juice and other tropical rums and liqueurs.Mr Francis said it took him hours to perfect his drink for the competition last Tuesday. He started off with variations of the ingredients but admitted his first few attempts looked like “swamp water”.He started researching how to make the drink more attractive, and after creating around 20 different concoctions, found the perfect blend. He served different versions up to family members, including his mother and an aunt “who knows good liquor”.He said: “First I was just looking at different fruits that I like because I wanted to incorporate fresh flavours in my drink, so I thought of passion fruit.“I got passion fruit for the rim and wanted to make it a nice pretty colour the ladies would like and then tried to get a layered [colour] effect.“My focus was on presentation so I just mixed and jumbled everything together and it ended up being an award winner.”Mr Francis told The Royal Gazette he had dreams of opening his own bar one day; for now he is focused on learning about every aspect of the hospitality industry.He recently finished working as a waiter at Port O’ Call Restaurant, where he said he first became fascinated with working behind the bar.“I decided to try this [PACE] course out and it was something I liked and I found I was really good at it,” Mr Francis said.The four-week course taught students the difference between liquors and liqueurs, how to properly mix drinks and the fundamentals of customer service and alcohol responsibility.Mr Raynor said he was pleased with how the students fared in the competition. “I think they did well and the important thing for bartenders is to have a signature drink and most of them learned how to mix the ingredients to get the colours and taste they wanted and that is the goal of it.”He said the competition was held at the end of each bartender course and showed whether students paid attention to the techniques taught each week.Runner-up in the competition was Glenn Johnson who created a fruity drink he named Tear Drop; third-place winner, teenager Dishunta Wilson, made a crowd-pleasing drink called Purple Haze.Student Anthony Bicchieri, age 19, decided to play off the classic Dark and Stormy, mixing Black Seal rum and ginger beer with creme de banana, triple sec and piña colada mix. He called the cocktail Elizabeth, after his sister.Mr Bicchieri said he improvised his drink for the competition, after brainstorming for a little while beforehand.“About an hour ago I started thinking about it. I knew I wanted a Dark-and-Stormy-type drink, but adding all the other ingredients just came into my head just now.”One drink was made simply with only black rum, a dash of bitters and soda; another was comprised of a potent blend of dark rum, brandy, gin and lime juice.Thirty-one-year-old Aston Edwards decided to combine Absolut vodka with pineapple and orange juice and sour mix for his contest entry. He admitted he had a few drinks in mind for the competition and decided to go with this one at the last minute because of the vibrant colour.Mr Edwards said he was hoping to take an additional alcohol service course to learn how to identify when a customer has had too much to drink then he hopes to find a job bartending.“I thought this was a good field to get into because you meet a lot of different people from different cultures,” he said. “It’s pretty fun. You get to make drinks and create something new and experiment.”Read our sidebar to try some of the students’ winning recipes for yourself.