Gin Kings hope to find potent mix after team building

MANILA, Philippines - Building team chemistry, the Gin Kings way.

Chris Ellis couldn’t have summed up the experience any better.

“Mixing different spirits is just like applied chemistry. You need to know all the ingredients and determine which go best together. So to add another metaphor, it’s also just like building a team,” said the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel rookie, who incidentally was a bartender back in the States before he seriously pursued a professional basketball career.

The Gin Kings recently joined a special run of the GSM Blueniversity, where bartender-instructors taught the basics of mixology using various GSMI brands.

Aside from raising the team’s awareness on their namesake brands, the GSM Blueniversity also served as a team building activity.

“Many of the players are new to the team so creating chemistry among them is our main objective. We attended the mixology seminar in order to learn how to do things together,” Ginebra San Miguel head coach Siot Tanquingcen said.

The players and coaches were divided into four groups during the mixing activity. The first was composed of coach Alfrancis Chua, Jayjay Helterbrand, Rudy Hatfield and Billy Mamaril; the second group was made up of Mark Caguioa, Kerby Raymundo, coach Allan Caidic, and Rico Maierhofer; the third group included Dylan Ababou, Allein Maliksi, Elmer Espiritu, and Ellis while Willie Wilson and Keith Jensen were in the fourth group.

Following the short seminar, all four groups concocted their own original cocktails using Ginebra San Miguel Inc.’s extensive line of products.

The experience of mixing drinks together was far better and important than the cocktails they came up with, the Gin Kings said.

“Magandang experience ito para sa amin. Praktis sa teamwork. May naghahalo ng drinks, may naghihiwa ng prutas at mayroon namang tagatikim,” said Chua, a bar owner whose team won the first prize with their cocktail named “F-Bomb.”

“This activity is really fun for us. Actually, it is my first time to mix drinks so it is an added skill. We got the chance to experiment with so many Ginebra products,” said Ababou.