How old is your drink?

The perfect cocktail is all about getting the balance right Bastians 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 timeconsuming is getting other ingredients in orderAt Bastian Narayanan and his team use only inhouse 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 explainsDimitri 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 batchIt 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 rulesMR AmericanNishant Mitra head chef and head of operations Eddies Bistro Bandra westTime Taken 6 days Rs 400 taxesSurprisingly Mr American is not a cocktail that flashes on Nishant Mitras menu And he wont 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 tonicIt 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 mdash 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 tryVodka Curry Mango Chutney FoamArjun Chaudhary mixologist Farzi Cafeacute Kamala MillsTime Taken 72 hours Rs 425 taxesIt 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 mdash 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 youll taste both elements at once The pungent curry leaves and sour chutney foamChaudhary 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 pungencyPopcorn MartiniBy Chef Clyde DMello Dishkiyaoon BKCTime Taken 721 days Rs 375 taxesDo 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 drinkA drink that lasts just three sips Yet chef Clyde DMellos recipe takes 721 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 inIn 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 DMello 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 toothpickFunky BuddhaBy Dimitri Lezinska aka Dimi at Koko Kamala MillsTime taken 810 days Rs 550 taxesBartender 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 punchlike 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 explainsHe 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 75 ml of the mango falernum 45 ml old monk and lime juice and gives it a dry shake He then adds the ice We dont 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 lengthPolynesian Pearl DiverBy Arijit Bose mixologist Bastian Bandra WestTime Taken 12 days R500 taxesOur curiosity is at its peak when we are informed that Chef Kelvin Cheungs 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 Cheungs 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 Beachcombers cocktail Pearl DriverPolynesian or not Narayanan describes it as the toughest cocktail on Bastians 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 its rather easy to put this drink togetherWe 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 its done and then pours the fruity mix in a huge tiki glass We take a sip and cant 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 addsFrench NegroniBy Grey Goose AER Bar amp Lounge Four Seasons HotelTime taken 15 days Rs 1400 taxesWhen 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 whitewashed 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 Weve given our own twist to the classic drink by using vodka instead of gin says Pawar And the only reason theyve labelled the Italian cocktail French is because theyve used vodka procured from France he adds But this isnt an ordinary combinationThe 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 cocktails 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 mans drink Pawar cautions as we down a sweet sip We are left with a strong bitter aftertaste that burns the throat but its nothing we cant handle