Robert Proppe of Drykk Bar in Iceland and Agata Zyra of Hobo Bar in Norway were crowned Nordic champions of Hennessy MyWay in Copenhagen on Sunday, 23 August. They beat 24 bartenders from eight countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
The regional final carried two places in the global final, which takes place across the Cognac region and Paris in October. Both winners will compete there against champions from other regions crowned across 2025 and 2026, including the UK and EurAsia titleholders.
What the winning serves were
Proppe's cocktail, called The Christening, built a cultural bridge between Japan, Iceland and Hennessy, drawing on the Icelandic tradition of christening bridges and tunnels with cognac while using Icelandic-grown Japanese ingredients. It combined 40ml of Hennessy VSOP with 30ml of fresh wasabi root emulsion, topped with 90ml of Ichigo strawberry kombucha.
Zyra's drink, Bravehearts, took its cue from hip-hop music and Hennessy's long association with New York's hip-hop culture. It mixed 35ml Hennessy VS, 35ml dry curaçao and 35ml homemade dry vermouth with 2.5ml PX sherry, 2.5ml lapsang tea and three dashes of black walnut bitters.
Proppe called the win "absolutely absurd" and said he was "overwhelmed with gratitude and pride seeing relentless rehearsals, drink revisions and sleepless nights culminating in this success." He described the recognition from "a spirit I value so highly" as an otherworldly feeling ahead of the global final in Cognac.
Zyra said winning the Nordic final "still feels unreal," adding that the competition was about more than the cocktail: "I wanted to share a story about what inspires me, and I'm proud that it resonated with the judges." She is Norwegian by residence rather than birth, and called representing the country and the wider Nordics on a global stage an incredible honour.
Who judged the final
The panel included 2025 Hennessy MyWay UK champion Martha May, 2025 EurAsia champion Ogi Kitaljevic and 2025 sustainability champion Damiano Pezzi, alongside Hennessy brand advocacy manager Jessica McRae and brand ambassador Thierry Sales. Drinks International digital editor Eleanor Yates also sat on the panel, giving the trade press a seat alongside the house's own staff and past winners.
Hennessy MyWay is a global bartending competition run by the cognac house, structured through country and regional finals that feed into a single global final each year. Regional champions have already been named for markets including the UK and EurAsia ahead of this year's Nordic result, part of a calendar that runs across 2025 and 2026.
Hennessy accounts for roughly half of the world's cognac supply, selling about 50 million bottles a year. Its V.S. and V.S.O.P. open a range that runs to rare, aged blends such as Paradis Imperial, and a 750ml bottle of each starts at $55 and $68, the everyday tier both winning serves poured from.
Hennessy is part of the Moët Hennessy portfolio, the LVMH division that also includes the champagne houses Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot. Cognac itself is a grape brandy rather than a whiskey, distilled from Ugni Blanc grapes grown in France's Charente region.
Zyra's remarks pointed to that heritage directly, describing Hennessy as "a brand with such a strong heritage and amazing values that genuinely resonate with me and the way I approach bartending." That framing runs through both winning serves, each built around a story rather than a straightforward pour.
Richard Hennessy, an Irish army officer, distilled the house's first barrel in France's Cognac region in 1765. The V.S.O.P. used in Proppe's winning serve traces to 1817, when King George IV of Great Britain asked for a Very Superior Old Pale Hennessy, the request that gave the abbreviation its name. A year later, Russia's Empress Maria Feodorovna ordered one for her son's birthday.
Our own ranking of the best brandy and cognac brands names Hennessy XO the most popular, behind only Rémy Martin XO for best overall, and credits it with a palate of prunes, raisins and sticky toffee pudding.
Neither Hennessy nor Drinks International disclosed a prize beyond the trip to the global final, and no purse or additional award was mentioned for the Nordic win. The emphasis, on the record from both winners, was the platform rather than any payout, with Proppe framing the trip to Cognac itself as the reward.
The global final in October will put Proppe and Zyra against a wider field of national and regional champions on Hennessy's home ground in Cognac before the event moves to Paris.
No date within October, nor the full list of competing champions, has yet been given, and neither the brand nor the competing bartenders have said what the winning serve from the Nordic round might change for the global one.
Sources
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Images: Hennessy; Drinks International
