Greater Long Island asked the drinking public to name their favorite Long Island bartenders. And the public responded in a huge way, with well over 500 nominations for this year’s Bartender Battle Long Island: The hunt for the Golden Shaker.
After all the tallying, here are your 16 competitors for the 2024 bracket contest:
In true Long Island sibling rivalry fashion, we’ve pitted eight bartenders from Nassau against eight bartenders from Suffolk.
So let’s see which county has the moxie.
Online voting at Greater Long Island will narrow the field to two final bartenders over three elimination rounds that start Wednesday. (Each round will run from noon Wednesday to noon Sunday.)
Those last two bartenders — one from Nassau and one from Suffolk — will then square off live at a huge Long Island Finals bash being planned by Lily’s in Babylon.
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The finalists will each be asked to make three drinks: a Manhattan, margarita and an espresso vodka martini.
Those drinks will then go before judges who will determine which bartender will drink from the Golden Shaker — described as “the Vince Lombardi trophy of bartenders on Long Island” by last year’s celebrity judge Gregg Giannotti of WFAN’s Boomer And Gio.
Last year’s winner, Dan Bartley of Mary Carroll’s in Babylon, has been invited to judge.
Click here or watch below to see how the contest unfolded at last year’s Finals. Bookmark Greater Long Island to follow along. Also follow us on X, TikTok, Instagram or Facebook. Voting for Round 1 will start at noon Wednesday.
