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How old is your drink?

Updated on: 14 August,2016 09:06 AM IST  | 
Phorum Dalal and Jane Borges |

Let go of instant cocktails. Mumbai's experimental brigade is mixing up drinks with alcohol that's brewed for days. And, here's what we thought after getting our share of tipsy

How old is your drink?

The perfect cocktail is all about getting the balance right, Bastian's bar manager Ashitosh Narayanan tells us. "Right from the syrups, to the kind of alcohol, the bitters and sweeteners, and garnishes used, everything matters," he says. He explains that while a cocktail can be put together within a few minutes, what is time-consuming is getting other ingredients in order.


At Bastian, Narayanan and his team use only in-house syrups. "And that takes a lot of time. Be it basic sugar or flavoured syrups, the preparation can take two to three weeks. But, once you have that in place, everything about your drink falls in place," he explains.


Dimitri Lezinska, who designed the bar menu for KoKo, prefers to make his own aromatic bitters. "Bitters are like salt in a cocktail. They take up to three months to prepare, and in order to attain consistency, we macerate the plants, herbs and roots individually. While the alcohol easily extracts the flavours from herbs and flowers, it takes a tough fight to penetrate the roots and barks," says Dimi, who loves creating his own batch.


It is quite evident that making a great cocktail needs enterprising hands at work. We made pit stops at bars in the city, where cocktail innovation is all about making new rules.

MR American
Nishant Mitra, head chef and head of operations @ Eddies Bistro, Bandra (west)
Time Taken: 6 days; Rs 400 + taxes

Nishant Mitra

Surprisingly, Mr American is not a cocktail that flashes on Nishant Mitra's menu. And he won't serve it, unless you ask him. For the last one year, he has been trying his hand at strange combinations of infused alcohols. His infused bar serves bubble gum with vodka, raw mango and chilli with the same, and starfruit and fennel with gin, among others. "I was just bored with what was being served everywhere," says Mitra. So, he decided to pickle fruits, spices and herbs, with alcohols. Among his first batches was dill and cucumber infused in vodka for over six days in mason dispenser jars, which he served with soda and tonic.

"It was just an experiment," he says, and it worked. But, if you want a cocktail with infused alcohol, Mitra will make his specials for you. The sweet and spicy Mr American is one of the few drinks made on request. For the drink, orange peels, rosemary, cloves and mace are infused in whisky for six days. The whisky is then poured into orange marmalade — a natural bitter. He evens out the sourness with a spoon of maple syrup. Perfect for a hot summer afternoon, this drink is refreshing to say the least, and the burst of natural flavours makes it worth a try.

Vodka Curry Mango Chutney Foam
Arjun Chaudhary, mixologist @ Farzi Café, Kamala Mills
Time Taken: 72 hours; Rs 425 + taxes

It is pouring cats and dogs outside. What we would really love is a stiff drink to warm up our insides. The bartender removes a flask from the storage — green from the curry leaves. They have been steeping in vodka for 72 hours now. On the other side, a foam pipe creates froth out of a mango chutney with sonth (dry ginger and tamarind paste). The bartender takes 90 ml of the curry vodka, strains it, adds crushed ice and passes it through a slush machine. He puts it in a margherita glass and tops it with the chutney foam. We reach out for a straw but a sip is recommended. "This way, you'll taste both elements at once. The pungent curry leaves and sour chutney foam."

Chaudhary walks in while we are sipping the cocktail, and offers to create the Tokyo Summer, his take on the sushi. This one is served at PaPaYa. "The gari or Japanese ginger is infused in vodka for four days. But, the tough part is remembering to stir it four times a day. What the chutney did to us, the wasabi in the second drink does beautifully, without distorting our face with its pungency."

Popcorn Martini
By Chef Clyde D'Mello @ Dishkiyaoon, BKC
Time Taken: 7-21 days; Rs 375 + taxes

Do you know why a martini comes with three olives on the rim?" bartender Jitesh Gupta asks us raising an eyebrow. Time up, he reveals: "After each sip, you eat an olive. In three swigs, you must finish your drink."

A drink that lasts just three sips. Yet, chef Clyde D'Mello's recipe takes 7-21 days to prepare the popcorn martini. He gestures for us to take a whiff of it. We detect a hint of popcorn with vermouth lingering in the background. We take a neat sip that takes over our entire palate and finally settles in our throat, without being very overpowering. The memory of sitting in a movie theatre with a tubful of popcorn settles in.

"In 500 ml vodka, we put 25 grams of saltless white popcorn. To add a little colour and a tinge of sweetness, we add two or three caramel flavoured popcorns, muddle this and let it steep for at least a week," says D'Mello, who has also tried a chaat martini where he experimented with the jal jeera and vodka. Gupta takes just 15 ml of the matured mixture, and adds 45 ml of bianco martini, known to most as vermouth. He takes a generous helping of ice cubes and gives the contents a good shake. "It is shaken, like James Bond would have liked it," he tells us, garnishing the glass with three caramel popcorns on a toothpick.

Funky Buddha
By Dimitri Lezinska (aka Dimi) at Koko, Kamala Mills
Time taken: 8-10 days; Rs 550 + taxes

Bartender Akash Singh is a sweet talker, and a potent cocktail maker. It would have been an easy 10 minutes to just watch him make us a Funky Buddha. Meanwhile, Dimi tells us how the cocktail is made with mango falernum as a sweetner. "Originating in Barbados in the 1700s, the punch-like consistency contains rum, citrus, almonds, spices and lime. Every household would make a batch, until one day someone decided to sell it," says Dimi, who has been working on his recipe for the past two years. His version contains almond, ginger, tamarind, cinnamon and cloves in rum with sugar and lime peels. "I let this mixture steep for six days and add then add mango flavoured tea. The entire process takes eight to 10 days," he explains.

He gives us a tasting glass and we take a whiff. When we tell him we are reminded of cough syrup, he frowns in jest. "I spend so much time on this and all you can say is cough syrup!" Just then, the cinnamon hits our throat, and the flavours explode. The mango tea is supported subtly by the spices. Singh is ready for his theatrical preparation. He takes just 7.5 ml of the mango falernum, 45 ml old monk and lime juice and gives it a dry shake. He then adds the ice. "We don't want to shake it too much and lose the flavour," he says, pouring us a tall glass. The black rum touches our palate accompanied by the spicy unique flavour of the falernum, which gives the drink some length.

Polynesian Pearl Diver
By Arijit Bose, mixologist @ Bastian, Bandra (West)
Time Taken: 12 days; R500 + taxes

Our curiosity is at its peak when we are informed that Chef Kelvin Cheung's Bastian serves a drink that Leonardo DiCaprio flaunted in the 2012 Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained. Being a diehard DiCaprio fan was the immediate motivation. The second was the fact that Cheung's seafood restaurant is the only place that serves this drink in the city. "The Polynesian Pear Diver was specially created for the Tarantino film," says bar manager Ashitosh Narayanan of Bastian and One Street Over. "But, it is a variation of restaurateur Don the Beachcomber's cocktail Pearl Driver."

Polynesian or not, Narayanan describes it as the toughest cocktail on Bastian's menu. Why? The making of the drink is very technical, he explains. "We use the famous Don mix, which is made from five syrups. The heart of the syrup is the pimento dram, where Jamaican allspice berries are infused in dark rum for over 10 days. After it is strained, vanilla syrup is added to it. This third syrup is mixed with the fourth, which is a combination of honey and whisked butter," he explains. Once the syrup is ready, it's rather easy to put this drink together.

"We blend different kinds of rum, refrigerate it for 24 hours, and then mix 60 ml of the alcohol with the syrup, along with imported Mexican lime and orange juice." Naryanan quickly shows us how it's done, and then pours the fruity mix in a huge tiki glass. We take a sip and can't stop at one. The fruity flavours remind us of a rich Christmas plum cake. Just that we are drinking this one, and not biting into it. "You can drink it all day, and nothing like having it with seafood," Naryanan adds.

French Negroni
By Grey Goose @ AER Bar & Lounge, Four Seasons Hotel
Time taken: 15 days; Rs 1,400 + taxes

When we first meet bar supervisor Ritesh Sudesh Pawar on the 34th floor of Four Seasons, he is busy arranging two airtight wooden casks on his white-washed bar station. Minutes later, his assistant fetches a large container of ice cubes and he nods at us, asking if he can begin making the French Negroni. The drink is made with gin, vermouth and Campari. "We've given our own twist to the classic drink by using vodka instead of gin," says Pawar. And, the only reason they've labelled the Italian cocktail 'French' is because they've used vodka procured from France, he adds. But, this isn't an ordinary combination.

"The three liquors are mixed together and then aged in a French oak barrel for over two weeks," he explains. The purpose is to change the cocktail's character and flavour. Meanwhile, he places large cubes of ice in a glass, and pours out the alcohol neat, slowly mixing it with a stirrer. This is followed by the drink being poured into another mixing jar, where the smoke of burnt wood shaves is pumped in, using a smoke gun. It is sealed for a few minutes and then served on the rocks, with the traditional garnish of swirled orange zest and a burnt cinnamon stick. "This is a man's drink," Pawar cautions, as we down a sweet sip. We are left with a strong bitter after-taste that burns the throat, but it's nothing we can't handle.

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