The Singapore Cocktail Festival is in full swing, and we’re busy visiting all bars, learning at the masterclasses and above all, just enjoying some fantastic tipples.
We don’t quite have the time to go through the details, but we thought we’d just let the photos we took over the last couple days do the talking for us. They’re quite eloquent, in our opinion.
If you’re looking to have a good time, the festival is still ongoing. You can still catch our guide here.
Day 1
The Festival was located within an old police station, but there were no cops in sight. The game was on!
It wouldn’t be much fun if there wasn’t some really radical stuff going on, and Hendrick’s gin put up a VR experience to explore the concept of dreams. We caught this young lady trying to make sense of it all.
On the other hand, we preferred to just enjoy Hendrick’s directly in our drinks.
We were also enthused to try some artisanal spirits, which had their own special room. First up was the Singaporean gin Paper Lantern, which had szechuan peppers as a key flavour component.
We also tried the Black Cow Vodka that we heard so much about. It’s made from milk- which is unusual, to say the least. We were surprised to find that it it actually tasted quite herbal. You’d never suspect that it’s actually dairy.
If you want to go back to basics, then why not forage for the ingredients going into your cocktail? Snow Leopard Vodka put up what we can describe as a small hedge of herbs- it’s quite novel.
We were quite happy to let others prepare our drinks this time, though.
There’s some other interesting stuff going on, courtesy of Bols, which claims to be the oldest surviving spirits brand in the world. Behind a hidden door in their room is this hidden gem:
A real Dutch lady flew in to our island nation just to introduce genever- the original Dutch courage. The ancestor of the modern day gin is not as clean tasting as its kin, but instead has a malty flavour reminiscent of a new-make whisky. Combined with the fresh pine flavour of juniper, of course.
At this point, we were quite peckish, so it was fortunate that food was quite abundant.
Parma ham tastes pretty good with bread and caramelised onions, as it turns out. Delicious. If we were the betting sort, however, we’d bet on the next dish to be the most popular over the weekend.
Truffle fries. Singapore’s newest addiction. A surefire hot seller.
Of course, we headed straight back to drinks right after the brief interlude. The participants of the Singapore’s Next Top Cocktail competition were all present at the festival grounds.
Of course, we had to try all their drinks. Sadly, the good folks ran out of the Kopi Ol’Fashioned, so we went for…
The Shiok Collins, which was basically a chilli-padi Tom Collins. It was light and refreshing- till we hit the chilli padi.
We thought the collins was pretty fiery, but hadn’t seen anything yet. The chilli was really dialled up to eleven on the Lion City Sour– a marriage of Chicken Rice and a Bloody Mary- by our friends at 28 Hong Kong Street. We certainly felt like we took up firebreathing after having a sip.
And our pick for winner was the Leo’s Flip, which we have written so much about. Here, the team from Nutmeg and Clove gamely posed for our thirsty camera.
With that, it was time to move on to attend our first bar takeover of the Festival- the Battle of Japan at Nutmeg and Clove
There wasn’t much fighting, but we did catch superstar Hidetsugu Ueno.
He prepared classic cocktails all evening, and we were so busy drinking that we almost forgot to feed the camera. Almost. Here’s the Sidecar he prepared for us.
Our love affair with Japan continued at Gibson, where we met another award winning bartender, Hiroyasu Koyama.
Koyama is well known for using herbal components in his drinks. We ordered the Green Forest, which had a rather long list of ingredients. Tanqueray Ten, noble fir infusion, lime, acacia honey, lemon balm and wormwood flowers.
True to its name, the drink tasted much like what we imagined a forest would taste like- predominantly of pine and herbs. In a pleasant way that reminded us of Absinthe, of course. Unsurprising, in retrospect; our bartender expressed ambitions of opening his own Absinthe distillery in Japan.
Diageo World Class Japan winner Mari Nakano was also at Gibson, and she served up the Sakura Sour. Other than being very pretty in the glass, the cocktail was just plain good. Tanqueray Ten, yuzu, sakura toque blanche, carib syrup and egg whites go into it.
Though the drinks were pleasant, like Cinderalla, we had to hustle off at midnight. Of course, that brought our first day at the cocktail festival to an end.
Day Two
We were surprisingly spry on Day Two, and we made our way to Fat Prince to attend our first masterclass: Maracatu Cachaça. Cachaça is a close cousin of rum, made entirely out of fermented sugar. It is also the national drink of Brazil, and so were not surprised to meet Maracatu co-founder Catarina, a native Brazilian.
The spirit was lip-smackingly good- a fruity spirit that tastes of steamed corn, citrus and fresh sugarcane juice. It was particularly good in a traditional Caipirinha, which is simply Cachaça, sugar and lime. Unbelievably tasty for something so simple.
Next up, because we’re such big fans of Japanese craftmanship, we headed for some cocktails which used traditional ingredients from the land of the Rising Sun. First up was the Spring Beauty, which uses Don Julio Silver Tequila, daiginjo sake, orange bitters, sakura liqueur, sakura tea, and of course, a sakura flower.
If you’re familiar with Japanese cuisine, then the use of matcha, or Japanese green tea, should come as no surprise. The Yamato Green Tea Gin Tonic was not even close to a traditional G&T- for one, it used seven ingredients: green tea-infused Botanist Gin, yuzu liqueur, cold-brewed green tea, fresh lime juice, sugar syrup, saline and tonic. That’s quite the list.
It’s incredibly refreshing- a lovechild of a traditional green tea and a Gin and Tonic. No tannic flavours- the result of over-brewing the tea- were present, which was quite amazing given the delicate nature of the matcha.
Finally, to end the night, we visited Anti:Dote to meet multi award-winning Taiwanese maestro Aki Wang. He has been in the business for two decades and runs multiple establishments under the Indulge Life Hospitality Group. Aki, as it turns out, also loves Asian ingredients- but Taiwanese, in this case.
Aki’s drinks were all incredible, but this one, called the Savoury Fizz, demanded our attention. While botanical like the Green Forest and the Yamato tonic, this one spoke of the sea instead. The Botanist gin, green tea, yuzu, sea tangle and wasabi soda, perilla leaf, perilla flower, fern leaf and lavender go into the glass. We were not familiar with all the components, but we sure that they were magic.
The drink had an umami flavour that reminds us of seaweed stock crossed with sour plums. Sounds strange, perhaps, but it’s the best drink we had across both days. And that’s saying something!
Wow. We were definitely spoiled by a great selection of cocktails. An embarrassment of riches, for sure.Sadly, we didn’t even make it to midnight this time.
Four days to go.
