Company making top favourite cocktail ingredient alternative for rival (10)

I believe the answer is:

competitor

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'for rival' is the definition.
(synonyms)

'company making top favourite cocktail ingredient alternative' is the wordplay.
'company' becomes 'co' (abbreviation).
'top' says to take the initial letters (in a down clue, the first letter is top).
'favourite' becomes 'pet' (synonyms).
'cocktail ingredient' becomes 'it' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'alternative' becomes 'or'.
The initial letter of 'making' is 'm'.
'co'+'m'+'pet'+'it'+'or'='COMPETITOR'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for competitor that I've seen before include "rival trader?" , "Sporting contest entrant" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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