Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle, 2004 Drinks Business Woman of the Year, presenting Karan Bilimoria, founder and chief executive of Cobra Beer, his 2006 Man of the Year award

Karan Bilimoria, founder and chief executive of Cobra Beer, has been honoured  with the Man of the Year title at the The Drinks Business Awards 2006 in London. Others in the shortlist were Alex Anson of the retail group Thresher, Danny Cameron of Raymond Reynolds, Michael Cox of Wines of Chile and Bill Farrar of the Macallan Distillery.

Bilimoria was in the eminent company of Cécile Bonnefond, President and CEO of the Champagne house Veuve Clicquot, who got the Woman of the Year title, and one of London's best-known chef-restauratuers, Giorgio Locatelli of Locanda Locatelli. The Drinks Business is a leading drinks trade magazine published in the UK.

Bilimoria's celebrated beer, meanwhile, warded off Macallan's challenge to win the highly coveted Business Excellence Award for the second successive year. The judges commended the company for its "continuing high level of innovation and creativity" in recent new product launches, including Cobra 0.0%, Cobra Lower Cal and King Cobra, besides the CobraVision sponsorship of movies aired on the UK television channels, itv2, itv3 and itv4.

In addition to these accolades, Cobra Beer was named runner-up in the Best Consumer Campaign category for CobraVision and in the Best Design & Packaging category for King Cobra. The Stormhoek Way campaign of Orbital wines and Reyka Vodka were the winners respectively in the two categories.

"We are absolutely delighted to receive these awards from The Drinks Business ," Bilimoria said in a press statement. "It is particularly satisfying for us to have retained the Business Excellence Award that we won last year as I feel this is a true measure of the company overall. The fact that we have won this award two years in a row is fantastic. I am proud of our achievements, which would not be possible without the dedication and entrepreneurial spirit of every member of the Cobra team."

Notable among the winners of The Drinks Business Awards 2006 were: Diageo, for its responsible drinking message, "Don't see a great night wasted"; Thresher Group got the Retail Award; Wines of Chile UK bagged the Trade Campaign award, despite serious competition from runners-up Sopexa UK for Think Red, Think Cotes du Rhone and InBev UK's Committed to Ale; and Brown-Forman Wines got honoured for its PR campaign for Fetzer Vineyards at Chelsea.