In the world of cocktails, Singapore almost inevitably brings to mind the pink gin-based Singapore Sling, a drink born in 1915 at the elegant Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel. In those strait-laced colonial days, it wasn’t proper for women to eat in public, so a bartender made a cocktail that looked like fruit juice. Today, creative minds in quirky bars across the city work with the same spirit of ingenuity, guided by the island’s eco-consciousness and diverse heritage, and highlighting some unexpected ingredients. Here are six that stand out.
Atlas
“The fun thing about gin is that the possibilities are endless,” said Atlas head bartender Lidiyanah K, noting some of the many directions it could take: “Floral, citrus, spicy, herbal.” Gin, while defined by the flavor of juniper, is hardly homogeneous. And if ever there was a place to learn about the variety of gins produced with local botanicals, Atlas is it. Yes, it’s in the lobby of Parkview Square, a grand art deco office building that houses several embassies, but calling it a lobby bar is a bit like calling the Beatles a rock ‘n’ roll band or Georges Seurat a landscape painter. Think of it as a gin museum: It offers more than 1,300 varieties of spirits, many of which are displayed in a 26-foot-tall gilded tower. The collection includes an actual archive of historic bottles, pulled from one of the tower’s high shelves when one orders a selection from the “vintage martini” section. You can choose your own jeans from any decade of the 20th century (S$60 to 275 or about $45 to $205).
The Gilded Age-inspired space also features a room with an epic champagne collection. Renovated in 2017 as a traditional early 20th century Manhattan, it features tufted leather furniture, vaulted ceilings with art nouveau paintings and grand murals themed around Cleopatra and King Tut.
Fura
“Why do we eat caviar? Why can’t we leave the sturgeon alone?’ asked Sasha Wijidessa as she spooned a dollop of vegan black garlic caviar onto a dollop of kombu ice cream floating in a vodka mix in a martini glass. He instructed me to let the ice cream melt to form a cap. The essence of umami permeated the drink.
During the night, he also concocted a Jellyfish Martini (jellyfish-infused gin, fish leaf distillate, a peppery local herb, spirulina dry vermouth and roasted seaweed oil: $25) and So You Bought Sad Corn ($25) , a Scottish-based drink sweetened with caramel corn-vinegar.
Fura, a narrow, minimalist bar on the second floor of a colonial-style shophouse, is owned and run by Miss Wijidessa and her partner in business and life, Christina Rasmussen, formerly head of foragers at Noma. The drinks and dishes they offer (they call it future food) border on the surreal, and their mission is to give a glimpse of what consumption could look like if it focused on creating balance in the ecosystem. Therefore, they cleverly use sustainable crops like tonka beans and overabundant species like jellyfish. Yes, the owners will be happy to tell you all about lacto-fermentation and the vegan creams and meringues used in their fantastic recipes if you ask, but they’re also firm in their promise that this is a bar, not a lecture hall.
Analog Initiative
Analogue Initiative’s setting in Chijmes, a white-shelled 19th-century former convent and girls’ school, belies the bar’s futuristic mindset, where everything is plant-based, even some of the furniture. (The tables are made of mycelium, the thread-like tissue of mushrooms, bound with shavings and shaped into shape.) The colossal, wrap-around wavy bar of teal evokes ocean waves. It was 3-D printed using more than 3,500 pounds of recycled plastic.
The ecological future of the land inspired Vijay Mudaliar, a co-owner, to create a menu that tries to answer a question similar to the one posed at Fura: What if over-farming and climate change wiped out certain crops and foods? To that end, most drinks include an analogue (wink, wink) of a familiar ingredient. In addition to local yuzu, for example, kombuchas, vinegars and spirits represent fresh citrus fruits. The Faux Espresso ($26) was based on toasted chicory, toasted barley and carob. (Coffee is among the most overgrown crops, Mr. Mudaliar said.) Coconut nectar, not sugar, provided the sweetness (cane is also overgrown) and aquafaba, the liquid from a can of chickpeas. , took the place of milk foam. And a dizzyingly absurd drama of a cocktail ($26) whose name contains an uncanny nod to the fine dining world’s obsession with luxury, it vaguely resembled a Bellini—a mixture of peach gin, grape juice fermented with champagne yeast and a type of seaweed that has a musky and vaguely truffle flavor, topped with pearl seaweed ‘caviar’. It was as delicious as it was silly.
Jungle dance hall
One convenient evening, Adrian Besa, the bar manager at Jungle Ballroom, was telling me about his recent visit to a remote Cambodian distillery that makes gin using herbs and botanicals grown on a biodynamic farm without electricity. He grabbed a bottle from a high shelf and offered me a whiff. it smelled fresh and herbal — just vaguely piney. Cambodia is just one Southeast Asian country whose flavors take center stage at Jungle Ballroom, a glitzy venue that exudes a DJ-driven club atmosphere later in the night. Mr. Bessa also poured me tastes of a musky coconut wine from the Philippines. aromatic, spicy Sri Lankan arrack distilled from coconut juice. handcraft jeans from China, Thailand, Philippines and Singapore. and fruity, tart pineapple with butter-pastry flavored Soju from local distillery Compendium Spirits.
Mr Bessa has devised a menu that represents different layers of a jungle: Canopy, which features bright, fruity, sultry drinks and various nut ingredients. Understorey, which features a variety of fizzy and spicy cocktails, including my favorite, the Shrub ($26), a delightful mix of Indian gin with fresh and slightly nutty pandan leaves, vermouth and a house-made vinegared pear shrub. and the Forest Floor, where rich fruit drinks and dense, spicy flavors and herbal aromas reign supreme. It was a multi-sensory free fall and I didn’t want it to end.
The elephant room
When Yugnes Susela was growing up in Singapore, his family ate chicken curry for dinner almost every Sunday — sometimes accompanied by a shot of whiskey. So it wasn’t too difficult for Mr. Susela, founder of the Elephant Room, to combine whiskey and curry in one glass. Chicken Curry ($27), the bar’s savory riff on an old-fashioned, with a strip of fried chicken skin, may sound odd — even satirical — but to Mr. Susela, it made perfect sense.
“If the finished product looks good, tastes great and smells great, it’s a cocktail,” he said as he pulled a bottle of fenugreek-infused tequila from an apothecary cabinet, which held jars and bottles containing herbs, spices or sprigs. liquids. He added a few drops of the tequila and the almondy, earthy, ever-so-slightly maple aromas rang out with the clarity of a crystal bell. It was the signature ingredient in the Goan Rabbit ($25), a subcontinental variation on the margarita. Indian spices also played starring roles in Ramu’s Fizz ($25), a twist on the classic Ramos gin fizz, a citrusy drink with a meringue-like texture that comes from egg whites, cream and lots of shaking. In Mr. Susela’s version, it was jazzed up with cumin gin, ginger syrup and spice cream. And the house-made mangosteen-strawberry cordial provided the Wild and Fresh ($27), a spin on the familiar Negroni, with a salty-sour dimension.
Sago House
The neon sign behind the bar at Sago House reads, “Don’t try,” but that’s not to suggest you give up and drink your life away. It’s the epitome of author Charles Bukowski (as bar manager Naz Zurimi explained, it’s a command to be true to yourself — no pretense allowed). It’s no surprise, then, that the bar’s laid-back atmosphere feels like you’re in an old friend’s apartment — and not just because the staff members chalk your name on the bar or table when you arrive, as if they’ve saved you the normal your position.
In October, Sago House moved to a spacious street-level location, a drastic change from the compact third-floor space where it debuted in 2020. But it has lost none of its cozy charm. The three owners, veterans of the local industry, have applied their original DIY approach to the new space, which features shelves made from wine crates and sewing machine tables used as furniture. The six-drink menu (from $24), posted on the bar’s Instagram account, changes weekly, but always offers different versions of the same classic cocktail styles: an old fashioned, a highball, a sour, a tropical cocktail. , a margarita and a martini or a Manhattan.
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