The Third Annual Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards

It's that time of year again, the time for the Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards!

View the winners from 2007 here and the 2008 Swag Awards here.

This year instead of a gift bag there was a swag room at Tales, so you took a bag and walked around and filled it up with items of interest. My items of interest became clear during this exchange in the elevator of the hotel immediately afterward.

Stranger, looking at my sack o' swag: "You know San Francisco's in the house when you see somebody with a bag of Fernet."

He was mistaken- I only had about 10 minis of Fernet on top of the bag. I also filled with the bag with other minis, making up the majority of my swag.

And to add to what I am now calling a collection, a few more muddlers.

I also was given four different cocktail shakers and managed to give three of them away before I got on the plane.

Most of best swag came from the cocktail bloggers' conference held the two days before Tales though. I got a full set (minus the new Bittermen's Bitters) set of The Bitter Truth cocktail bitters,

as well as a nice set of Rosle garnish tools.

But the best was a tiki mug- in the shape of Magnum, P.I. from Tiki Farm!

However, as the Drink.Write 2009 conference was a private event, even the best mug cannot be declared the winner.

But what can? Find out after the jump...

The winner for Best Swag in this year's Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards is...

The binocular visor from Antigua-Barbuda! I found this in the gifting suite and had to have it. This attractive visor looks as good keeping the sun out of your eyes

as it does helping your eyes see far into the distance. Well done, Antigua-Barbuda!