The drinker | cocktail competition

Brian Duell, head bartender at Che, St James's Street, London SW1, always struck me as looking a bit like Kevin Costner. Someone has just suggested a cross between Costner and Harrison Ford. Never mind. You can be sure that neither actor makes cocktails with the meditative precision that Brian displays in front of his audience tonight. He starts on the first, a Vanilla Old-Fashioned, muddling Bisquit cognac with ice, when he announces that he is leaving those ingredients to dilute while he goes on to make two others.

Brian Duell, head bartender at Che, St James's Street, London SW1, always struck me as looking a bit like Kevin Costner. Someone has just suggested a cross between Costner and Harrison Ford. Never mind. You can be sure that neither actor makes cocktails with the meditative precision that Brian displays in front of his audience tonight. He starts on the first, a Vanilla Old-Fashioned, muddling Bisquit cognac with ice, when he announces that he is leaving those ingredients to dilute while he goes on to make two others.

We're down to the wire in Back to Basics, the annual Marblehead Cocktail Competition, at London's Atlantic Bar & Grill. In the weeks since I reported on the Liverpool heat of the contest, Brian Duell has won the London heat against 24 other entrants, each making three drinks in 12 minutes. Having beaten Jamie Terrell of Lab in an excruciatingly close contest, Brian is competing against Sean Finnegan of Baby Blue (Liverpool), Luis Arrevillagas of Mash (Manchester), Ilario Pogliani of Isola (London), and Chris Langan of Baby Blue (Edinburgh).

As always, when two or more bartenders are gathered together with no professional responsibilities, we're having the kind of party for which paracetamol and a good night's sleep are a partial cure. The air is so thick with cigarettes that I have to ask the people at my table, "Do you mind if I don't smoke?" For the competing bartenders, the occasion is less relaxing: Ilario Pogliani, first up, has hands that register an impressive shake-measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale.

I get to taste all the drinks when the judges are done, and Brian's work stands out. Some judges agree, others take a dissenting view. But when the numbers are added, they go in Brian's favour.

For the record, here are the drinks with which Brian won the day. That Vanilla Old-Fashioned is cognac, Vanille de Madagascar (a vanilla liqueur), and a dash of bitters. His Black Bison is Zubrowka vodka (flavoured with Polish bisongrass), crÿme de cassis, Chambord liqueur, lime juice, blackcurrant puree, sugar syrup. Nectarine Julep is fresh nectarine, Maker's Mark bourbon and sugar syrup.

And here's how to make them? No chance. Brian calls his cocktail approach "classic": he likes "making basic drinks rather than trying a little of this and a little of that. I use the spirits as a flavour rather than disguising them." He gets an idea, plays with it, and gets it right after the third, fourth or fifth attempt. But with all these cocktails, attention to detail and the skilled bartender's patience put them outside the reach of home mixers. Go to Che (tel: 020 7747 9380) if you want to see what set Brian above his peers.

Dick Bradsell thought Brian was on "a different plane" from the other able competitors. Peter Dorelli commented: "I love this 'Back to Basics' approach. Too many of us in bartending have lost our way, putting seven or eight ingredients in every cocktail and making artificial concoctions that are clever but clashing." He thinks those who lost tonight were suffering from nerves: "The ingredients were right but the proportions were wrong." And he adds, from the perspective of a wise veteran: "I am optimistic that my trade has a great future."

For the moment, however, there is only the present. It belongs to Brian Duell. His drinks are classic and simple, like all the best cocktails. And when you make drinks this well, you can look like Jack Straw and still be the master of all you survey.