I love winning. And Ruki and I were definitely winning at life at Yelp’s Negroni Club last week.

All this is ours, all ours!

With cult CBD laneway bar New Gold Mountain all to ourselves, we were treated to a mini lecture by NGM’s bartender — a passionate bloke if ever there was one — on the history of the Negroni cocktail. We learned the you can do a twist on the classic mixture of gin/vermouth/bitters.

And then the big reveal. We gasped in delight when we were told the glorious news: we could utilise all of the selected alcohols on the bar to make cocktails!

Granted, it was one cocktail per table, and each table had around four Yelpers (Yelponians? people with Yelp profiles who’d RSVPed, at least). But oh, how glorious was our cocktail?

Our cocktail later had ice and lemon peel added

We started with a base of Tequila Tromba, a brand I love (having been to one of their Toma tasting classes). With a few other hard-to-find liqueurs — including a sherry — we managed to create one heckuva drink.

The winning team, Negroni bottles in hand

It was so good, in fact, that it won the taste test (from Community Manager Tresna and the two NGM bar staff)! The prize? Our very own bottles of Negronis, mixed and bottled right there for us to take home.

Each bottle serves two. Who’s going to be Ruki’s and my lucky plus ones to drink them?