Drink Masters

I only made it through the second episode. I got a little irritated when one of the contestants made a comment of people of color being in the cocktail industry. If they had made the show more about the actual cocktails I would have watched more of it. It is largely being overrated in my opinion when it is an average one at best. There were a few cocktails on there that I would have loved to take a sip of. I thought this show would be a good one to watch but I was so disappointed. A few were voted off that didn't deserve to be. The judges were something to be desired for. Pass this one up and watch something else.

As a person who secretly & 'amateuri-ashly' enjoys making cocktails and also loves spending time watching some competitions I was nicely surprised by this one.

Not only it was a visually compelling and easy to watch show but also I learned quite a few new tricks shared by the participants.

I cannot agree with the reviewers saying that the judges did a bad job. Seeing quite a lot of similar shows I can say most of them were judged much worse. I really did enjoy the show and the elimination seemed quite fair to me. Also, the judges gave some insightful information, shared why each person was chosen and generally had a really lovely attitude towards the mixologists.

Overall I enjoyed watching this show. The atmosphere was good, the drinks were beautiful and the sound design really brought out that component of making cocktails. I was impressed with the range of ingredients and techniques on display.

There was a strong impression that the contestants had time to prepare before each of the challenges to make a plan, and potentially even to organize the availability of their inhredients. How the hell would they have hay just lying around on the shelf?

The one thing that stood out very negatively was the way the judges' comments were utilized. They need to be a core ingredient to the show, as their descriptions are the only way we as the viewer can really experience these cocktails. Often the comments were cut too short and decisions were not explained enough. This is especially true for the final judgement, which came without any explanation whatsoever. Personally, I felt like one of the other finalists should have won (no spoilers). But most importantly, the decision should have been explained much more transparently.

Netflix really does have a way with screwing up these unique competition shows (Blown Away) to fit their agenda to the point where it's so blatant and obvious and almost a turn off that you don't even want to watch anymore. Every elimination is carefully calculated and not solely based on who did the best, worst, whether it was their second time in the bottom or first, whether they keep underperforming, etc. It's about being as inclusive as possibly throughout the duration of the show. Let's be real, recently, shows like this are skewed towards minorities advancing onward. It's about making the underrepresented represented. Which is a good thing, but when it starts to become more about representation then who did better in a challenge, that's when it gets frustrating. I myself am gay, and this is something I've picked up on. In the first episode, I already knew the people who would get picked off in the beginning and the ones who would go far solely based on their edit and their sob stories about what a challenge it is for them to work in a male and straight and white dominated industry. In that moment, it no longer became a show about skill and talent. Let people compete naturally and be judged and eliminated fairly, or let them judge the cocktails blind. Other than that, the show looks good and the drinks are cool and the show has a nice flow and concept.

Many of the bartenders that we enjoyed got dismissed prematurely, I think it would have helped to have more transparency in the scoring so that we can better understand why our contenders were ejected.

I personally disagreed with the discharge of 3 specific individuals, and found that 3 other individuals were kept on too long. I found the final winner to be a bit 'safe' and unexciting - though I wondered if their drinks were especially 'tasty' which is completely subjective. Their drinks tended to be visually mild - but maybe the tastes were superior?

I think the show has immense potential and I'd love to see more history about the spirits provided. I would also welcome a website hosted by the showrunners offering drink recipes, technique videos, and so on.