Consultancies support World’s Best Bars and Adelaide Wine Show
Professional services firms Deloitte and BDO have been supporting the global drinks industry, the former as an adjudicator for the world’s best bars list and the latter as an Adelaide wine show sponsor.
The consulting industry is notorious for its long hours, and consequently the activities consultants commonly engage in to wind down.
Two professional services firms are at least putting that expertise to good use, with Deloitte assigned as the independent voting auditor of the World’s 50 Best Bars list, which this year featured one entry each for Sydney and Melbourne, and BDO acting as a category sponsor for the recent 2023 Royal Adelaide Wine Show.
Running since 2009, the prestigious annual World’s Best Bars rankings are determined via a tally of strictly confidential votes cast by 680 anonymous industry experts according to their own criteria, including renowned bartenders, cocktail specialists, consultants and drinks writers from around the world. To uphold the integrity of the voting process and provide ballot security, Deloitte was appointed in 2020 as the list’s official independent adjudicator.
Taking out the crown this year was Sips in Barcelona, the second consecutive triumph for the Catalonia capital after Paradiso’s first placing last year. Further down the list, but climbing fourteen places into 15th, was Sydney’s Maybe Sammy, where among even pricier options customers can splurge on a vintage-dated Negroni made from antique Suntory Dry Gin, Campari and Cinzano Vermouth from the 70s. The bar has featured on the list every year since its 2019 opening.
Unfortunately for Deloitte’s local employees, their recent move to new offices in Circular Quay means that Maybe Sammy is no longer right on their doorstep, with the 15-minute round trip now chewing into the lunch break.
The same applies to the firm’s veteran staff in Melbourne, who once upon a time worked just a short hop to where the world’s 23rd-best ranked bar Caretaker’s Cottage would later open – although you’d be hard-pressed fitting in more than the C-suite.
To deal with the small space and navigate the bureaucracy of setting up in a heritage-list site (Caretaker’s Cottage was once a church caretaker’s cottage), the bar’s owners brought in an unnamed consultant to help keep the project on track. Speaking to online industry publication Bars and Clubs, co-founder Matt Stirling stated; “It’s just critical to have all your information in order to be really organised, and it shouldn’t be unreasonably lengthy.”
Meanwhile, the Royal Adelaide Wine Show – considered the country’s most prestigious – has recently hosted its annual awards ceremony, with professional services firm BDO on board as a trophy sponsor for the Best Dry White Blend, won this year by Deep Woods Estate’s 2023 Ivory Semillon Sauvignon Blanc out of the Margaret River.
The trophy was presented by BDO business services director Ryan Wilton, who possibly looked more ecstatic than the recipient.
