In a tightly contested final, Lyaness took the title of Drinks Menu of the Year (sponsored by Franklin & Sons).

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Led by head bartender Louis Macpherson, the Lyaness team created five core ingredients using proprietary processes and techniques that underpin the 15-serve menu.

The ingredient Everything Vinegar – used in Lyaness’ Thirdspace Shandy drink – uses elements from a carbon farm in Clapham, London, to create a complex fermented vinegar.

Tree Caramel – featuring in the likes of Lightning Wine – is created by subjecting the invasive African braai wood to cycles of extreme hear, cold and pressure to manipulate the material and extract tea.

The bar’s ingredient Thunder Mushroom, meanwhile – an element in the Hart Old Fashioned and Elephant Martini – is a blend of grains and legumes inoculated with koji spores, fermented, fortifi ed and electrocuted to oxidise the alcohol.

Death Bitters – used in the Tornado Sazerac – captures the flavour of lemon leaves “immediately at the point of death” by submerging a lemon tree into liquid nitrogen to instantly freeze it, allowing the capture of a range of flavours.

Finally, B + B – found in the bar’s Shaky Fist Margarita – uses toasted grains and elements, such as pea amazake, to produce a combination of grains and fat found in dishes from across the world. It’s fair to say, cocktails like this don’t exist anywhere else.

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Finalists: Theories + Frontiers, Lab 22, Cardiff; Silverleaf Menu, Silverleaf, London; Transcend, Panda & Sons, Edinburgh