Looking back at our drinking experiences across the years, we recall the simple things with clarity.
As time erodes our memories, the complicated and unnecessary are swept away. In a way, it’s poetic. Why keep anything extraneous?
This thought was swimming in our mind when we arrived at new bar Amrith. The question is, will we remember it in the years to come?
The right proportions
We considered this while our bartender, Mark Tay, made us our first drink.
We’re reminded of some things we’ve read about bonsai. Bonsai is the art of growing a pygmy tree in a pot. Not a bush- a tree, with the correct proportions and sizes of branches, leaves, and miniature trunk.
A bonsai never starts off looking like a bonsai. Left to its own devices, it grows into a jumble of branches, irregular leaves and gnarled roots. It looks like a shrub. It never becomes a bonsai tree.
Proportions matter in bonsai.
Our first drink was a Tom Collins, one of the oldest drinks there is. The drink is simplicity in itself; syrup, gin, lemon juice, and soda. Except here, thick golden syrup stands in for clear sugar, lime replaces lemon, and tonic replaces soda.
Proportions matter, especially when you change the components of a drink. Too much syrup and it becomes cloying. Too much lime, and acid assails the tongue.
It was light and refreshing with a nice sharp bite of citrus. The seemingly simple substitutions add layers to the drink and make it playful, but never distracting. It was just right.
The invisible hand of the artist
Bonsai trees look natural, but it’s a beautiful illusion. It is carefully crafted to conceal artifice. Yet, a diamond does not cut itself into a jewel. A bonsai doesn’t trim itself. Behind it is the invisible hand of an artist.
Would we consider Mark to be an artist? He has already spent two decades in the business, but there was a glimmer of paternal pride in his voice as he described the painstaking effort that went into its creation.
Every detail of the small bar was considered; not just the layout, but the grain of the wood, the lighting. Even the menus were bound-and-stitched by hand.
Yet, the proof was in Mark’s rendition of the Whisky Sour.
The lemon was replaced with lime, mellowing the drink. Gomme syrup was used to add richness and smoothness to the mouthfeel and black walnut bitters were added to complement the spicy Angostura with a rounder, nutty aroma.
With those sorted, all that remained was egg white. In a whisky sour, the egg white has one purpose; to give a rich, creamy head.
The ingredient is useless, however, without proper bartending technique. Poor shaking leads to clumps, uneven foam, and disappointment. We don’t know what magic went into the pistoning wrist motions, but the drink that emerged had a head with a consistency that was exactly right.
The result? Imagine drinking a cloud, one with blossoming layers of aroma and flavour. Of all the whisky sours that we’ve ever tried, this was the closest to perfect.
The difference was made in the hands of the artist, but how many would have noticed?
Simplicity and trimming away the extraneous
To us, simplicity is purity and austerity. It is when the artist decides that there’s nothing left to add, nor take away.
Complexity is not sought for its own sake, but to enhance the central idea. Simple is not simplistic. The former trims the leaves and stems of a bonsai, leaving the essentials and giving a sense of structure. The latter hacks away the trunk of the bonsai, killing it.
This was expressed in Amrith’s Clear Skies After 8 ($24++), an homage to After Eights. In fact, it tastes exactly like the classic after-dinner sweet, from the dark, bitter chocolate, the pleasantly sweet middle note, and the fresh mint at the end. It’s elemental- it’s an After Eight.
The interesting part is that it’s completely clear. How was this achieved? A mint espresso martini was first made, then spun through a rotary evaporator, cryofiltered, then run through the rotary evaporator again. The drink is stored in a freezer, and stirred briefly before serving.
The texture comes out thick, but smooth. It’s just rich enough to count as dessert, but light enough to lift one from a food-induced coma. There is no extraneous colour, no choppy texture, no chocolate or mint garnish. There would be no point. It’s already an After-Eight in a glass. Why add anything else?
Man made nature
The Negroni has only three ingredients, but beneath the surface lies a sophisticated balance. Between the gin, Campari, and vermouth, there are dozens of herbs in the glass. In a good Negroni, these meld seamlessly together, and the flavour is enjoyed as a whole. Depth and interest is achieved with just three components.
Amrith has a rendition of the Negroni, too. Conde de Cuba rum, Aperol and Cinzano 1757 Rosso vermouth and bitters are stirred over ice. A bottle is then filled with smoke, the mixture poured in, and swirled around. It’s the poured into a tulip glass and served sans garnish.
Not that the Smoky Havana ($30++) needs one. The scent of smoke suffuses the filled glass. Its not the acrid like wood fire and ash, but has a soft incense-like quality. The smell of citrus peel folds over floral wood.
The drink is, as with all Negronis, bitter and sweet, but with an added layer of soft smoke that accentuates both. The sour component reminds us of a dusting of Chinese preserved orange peels stirred over wine. The flavours seem so well suited for each other that it seems like a matter of course to put them together.
That’s the beauty of the illusion. It seems natural, as if it had always belonged, but someone took the time to craft every little element of it.
The smoke? Not made by burning random wood chips, but a combination of French Limousin oak, hickory and cherrywood blended together with cinnamon quills. The citrus in the smoke? Lemon, orange and grapefruit peels, painstakingly dehydrated, rehydrated then dehydrated again for blending with the wood.
The bitters? A combination of Peychaud’s and homemade cinnamon and anise bitters. Mark describes the process like it’s a matter of fact.
A matter of fact. It’s just something that he does.
Poignancy and Context
Bonsai often incorporates the concept of wabi-sabi, feelings of longing, transience and impermanence. Often, these relate to nature, but in a country where there is precious little of it, the city is our jungle. We look at Amrith’s menu, which features drinks inspired by a rotating list of countries, both European and Asian, and we see wabi-sabi. For now, Spain and Singapore have taken the spots on the menu.
Regular readers know that we adore local heritage and cuisine, both for the familiarity, and a longing for it. It should come as no surprise that we went for the Hainanese Chicken Rice ($26++) cocktail. We were expecting some kind of fat-washed drink with a generous helping of ginger, so we were a little shocked when the stove was lit.
The cocktail, you see, is quite possibly the closest you can get to liquid chicken rice. It’s based on rye fat washed with sesame oil. The infusion is shaken with ginger liqueur, calamansi and cucumber extract, and then served with actual white chicken chunks drizzled with warm soy sauce on the side. It’s quite close to cooking chicken rice and turning it into a cocktail.
That goes double for the Katong Laksa ($26++) cocktail. You could identify it with your eyes closed; the familiar aromas of shrimp paste and coconut waft out of the serving bowl. Plump noodle strands swim in the drink, and it’s garnished with a hard-boiled egg. It could easily be mistaken for the real thing. The only thing that gives it away is the texture, which is lighter than the actual laksa, and the temperature, which is, of course, cold.
The Peranakan ($24++), a celebration of both Mark’s heritage in general, and his grandmother’s kitchen in specific. Based on a classic sour, gin forms the base, to which the flavours of pandan and ginger are added The pièce de résistance is a mist made from Provencal roses and 15 year old Bowmore gently sprayed over the drink, replacing the bitters.
The scent certainly did not disappoint. It permeated the very air around the drink, giving a natural, inviting fragrance. The perfume flowed naturally into the flavours; a classic combination of pandan and ginger. The aroma and flavour are distinct, but integrated so well that we could not tell when one ended and the other began.
We soaked up more than just smells and tastes. We found poignancy.
Summing it all up
While the connection to cocktails and bonsai might seem tenuous, at Amrith, we see the connection between them. The drinks are crafted by a master’s hand. Elegant, simple and above all, delicious. An experience well worth remembering.
We can sum up our Amrith review in three words: go there now.
Want to find out what others thought about Amrith? Check out what our friends at Parched have to say.
