At the bi-level, mid-century-styled Jigger & Pony, inside the Amara Singapore, patrons settle in for the evening with a ‘Madame President’ (a Negroni that telegraphs the Singapore Botanic Gardens with Monkey 47 gin, kaffir dry vermouth, orchid and bitter-melon liqueur) with a playful Campari lollipop. The carbonated Mineral Vodka Soda with lime-infused Belvedere and birch sap is another common nightcap order. Both have appeared on Jigger & Pony menus, which are always creatively laid out like a magazine.
Brandishing such catchy cover lines as ‘The Decade Ahead’, its pages are divvied-up among the different drinks, revealing their stories in the form of newsy articles and culminating with a grid of all the cocktails conveniently listed on the back of each ‘issue’.
In Montreal, at Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth, guests at Nacarat will be handed a menu that doubles as a tasting wheel. Strewn with pictograms, it orbits through bitter, spicy, umami, sour and sweet profiles, helping stumped imbibers make informed choices when they land on cocktails like the zippy ‘Toadka’ (vodka, white vermouth, sweet peas, mint cream, mushroom-wasabi tincture) and bourbon-raspberry ‘La Marsa’, redolent of Tunisia with (bell) pepper sorbet and citrus foam.
Cocktail menus are equally imaginative at Midnight Rambler, the Dallas lair from husband-and-wife duo Christy Pope and Chad Solomon inside the Joule hotel (Pagan Ritual: Rites of Spring, or the holiday-season-ready Island of Misfit Drinks). But the list is only one piece of an evocative puzzle. There are also the neo-classical cocktails embracing modernist techniques such as the ‘Savoury Hunter’ (lemongrass- and makrutleaf gin, lime, coconut, coriander [cilantro], Thai chilli) and ‘Tiger Style’ (Batavia arrack, calamansi, palm sugar, pippali, egg white, cassia aromatic essence); and a rock ’n’ roll aura thanks to dark leather, metallic finishes and a terrazzo checkerboard floor. The playlist, including tunes from The Sonics, The Velvet Underground, Ike and Tina Turner, and The Rolling Stones, was also carefully assembled to channel the 1960s and 70s. ‘Hotel bars lend themselves to fantasy and escapism,’ says Pope, which, adds Solomon, ‘allows for more experimentation both with the overall experience, and the drinks themselves in terms of flavours and service presentation.’
To guests, a hotel bar might have the feel of a beautifully orchestrated mirage, but behind the scenes they are propelled by efficiency and practicality. ‘One of the most interesting challenges I’m regularly faced with is underbar layout, meaning the nuts and bolts of bar equipment to create working spaces for bartenders. A thoughtful bar will save thousands of dollars in labour every year, reducing the amount of time it takes to execute service,’ says Mike Ryan, head of bars at Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants. ‘The staff should be able to focus on serving guests, not just drinks. The constant challenge is to create spaces that are functional as well as beautiful – like a majestic, four-dimensional crossword puzzle, but with booze and glass and stainless steel instead of vowels and consonants.’
A hotel bar might have the feel of a beautifully orchestrated mirage, but behind the scenes they are propelled by efficiency and practicality.
No. 44
Singapore Sling
LONG BAR AT RAFFLES SINGAPORE
Created by Ngiam Tong Boon
INGREDIENTS
30 ml (1 fl oz) Widges London Dry Gin
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) Bénédictine
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) Luxardo Cherry Sangue Morlacco
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) Crawley’s Singapore Sling Grenadine
60 ml (2 fl oz) fresh pineapple juice
22.5 ml (scant ¾ oz) freshly squeezed lime juice
a dash of Scrappy’s Spice Plantation bitters
cherry and pineapple chunk, to garnish
METHOD
Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake vigorously for about 12 seconds. Strain the cocktail into a chilled highball glass. Garnish with a skewer of cherry and pineapple.
Champalimaud Design’s restoration of Raffles Singapore in 2019 has unleashed a spurt of renewed interest in this hotel with the ethereal ivory wedding-cake façade. Dating back to 1887, the hotel has pep once more, with buffed eucalyptus and marble floors and a floral-inspired chandelier drenched in crystals taking centre-stage in the triple-story lobby. Long Bar enthusiasts need not fret because the palm fans are still in place and the peanut shells continue to litter the floor.
What has changed, for the better, is the recipe for Long Bar’s signature Singapore Sling. Over the years, the drink – invented in 1915 by bartender Ngiam Tong Boon – had, critics demurred, gone downhill; its too-sweet, too-fruity taste profile an affront to all those cocktail warriors beneficently advancing palates. Long Bar’s current variation harks back to the early 20th-century days of Boon, emphasising quality ingredients for drier, balanced results. The hallmark herbal Bénédictine liqueur is still an integral component, it’s just united now with all-natural pomegranate grenadine syrup, cardamom-heavy Widges London Dry Gin, Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao and custom ‘Spice Plantation’ bitters. Have one, at least, then make the ‘Golden Milk Punch’, a saffron-spiced almond milk, ginger and apricot liqueur concoction honouring Rudyard Kipling’s 1889 visit to Raffles, your next call.
No. 45
Mad Dog
MANHATTAN AT REGENT SINGAPORE
INGREDIENTS
60 ml (2 fl oz) Johnnie Walker 18-year-old whisky
7.5 ml (¼ fl oz) Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao
5 ml (1 teaspoon) Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
5 ml (1 teaspoon) Drambuie
2 dashes of absinthe (the bar uses St George Absinthe Verte)
2 dashes of Angostura bitters
2 dashes of Peychaud’s bitters
1 dash of Fee Brothers black walnut bitters
1 strip of lemon zest, to garnish
METHOD
Pour all ingredients into a mixing glass and add ice, then stir until chilled. Pour into a wine glass and add a large cube of ice. Express the lemon zest over the drink and drop it inside the glass to garnish.
John Portman, the pioneering late American architect and real estate developer, invigorated hotel lobbies with futuristic glass elevators whizzing up and down his intricate, vertiginous atriums. When the Pavilion InterContinental Hotel opened in 1982, it proudly ushered guests into one of Portman’s pyramid-style public spaces; today, as Regent Singapore, that vertical design is still an arresting focal point. Another, much newer
