IBA (International Bartenders Association) is an organization that counts bartenders in sixty-four countries and territories as members and represents bartending as a profession. The IBA was founded in 1951 at the Grand Hotel in Torquay, England, by bartenders from Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, which provided its first president, W. J. “Billy” Tarling. See Tarling, William James “Billy”. Its presence is primarily felt in Europe and Asia. The IBA holds an annual contest called the World Cocktail Competition (originally called the International Cocktail Competition), which began in 1955 and is held in a different country each year. The association has become best known, perhaps, for its list of sanctioned, “official” cocktails, the standardized recipes for which are often consulted by media and bartenders alike.
See United Kingdom Bartenders Guild (UKBG) and United States Bartenders’ Guild (USBG).
IBA website. https://www.iba-world.com (accessed February 17, 2021).
By: Robert Simonson