Seattle, WA— The winners of the Coffee Fest Washington, DC, 2006 “Stirling Signature Beverage Open”, which occurred at the Washington DC Convention Center, February 24-26, were R.O. Cook of Riverside House of Brews in Belville, North Carolina, who took the $500 prize for “Best-Tasting Beverage” and Sterling Muth of Coffee Labs Roasters in Tarrytown, New York, who won $500 for “Most Creative Beverage”. The competition, which will occur at all Coffee Fests, is intended to be a free-form event to showcase and reward quality and creativity in beverage making.

R.O. Cook’s “Enchanted Spice Latte”, a mixture of hand-ground crystallized ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, vanilla bean and sugar blended with half-and-half and espresso, was an aromatic delight for the judges.

Sterling Muth’s (yes, his first name really is “Sterling” and no, that did not figure in his winning score!) exotic “Kokee Coconut”, which was served in an actual coconut with fresh mint leaves took the cake for most creative beverage. Ingredients included espresso, mint leaves, toasted coconut, half-and-half, fresh coconut, Stirling Peppermint Schnapps syrup, Stirling German Chocolate syrup and Stirling Hawaiian Coconut syrup.

Judges for the DC competition were Jack Groot, owner of OnTrack Coffee Consulting, Alan Silverman of Festivals, Inc., and Greg Ingram, national sales manager of Fresh Cup Magazine. Equipment for the competition, including a two-group espresso machine and grinder, was provided by Astoria. The blender was provided by Blendtec and espresso was supplied by Magnum Coffee of Nunica, Michigan.

Stirling Gourmet Flavors is known around the world as an innovative, customer-service oriented syrup manufacturer. The full line of Stirling’s products includes more than fifty flavors of high-quality cane-sugar syrups and nearly twenty 6.3-oz. gift size syrups as well as 14 sugar-free syrups made with Splenda®. Stirling also offers mocha mixes, display items and more. Stirling gourmet flavorings are extremely versatile and are used in coffee beverages, Italian sodas and iced beverages, cocktails and non-alcoholic beverages, baking, and culinary arts.

More information on participating in the next “Stirling Signature Beverage Open”, which will occur at Coffee Fest Las Vegas in June can be obtained by contacting Coffee Fest at www.coffeefest.com or 425.283.5058 or by contacting Stirling at www.stirling.net or 425.251.9293