World Cocktail Day: Mixology goes high-tech with fancy bar equipment
Summary
From complex technology to three-dimensional ice moulds and cocktail labs, here’s how bars in India have levelled up like never before
Razvan Zamfirescu, the beverage head of All In Hospitality that launched HyLo in Mumbai recently, excitedly leads guests to the bar to show off the homogeniser machine, the pièce de résistance and the only one being used in India according to him.
The machine is used to pulverise ingredients, and extract flavours from fruits and lemons without cutting into them. “The machine creates pressure and releases sucrose and oils from lemons instead of breaking the skin to just release acids. My sours are on a whole different level with the lemon juice from the machine, be it pisco sours, whisky sours or mezcal sours," Zamfirescu says.
Whether it is to cater to modern innovations or to stay ahead of the curve, mixologists today ensure that their creations are uber cool, on point and flavourful with tools such as rotovap, homogeniser, ultrasonic sous vide, cryofiltration and custom ice blocks. These high-end equipment can be huge investment for bars; the rotovap—short for rotary evaporator—costs between ₹6 lakh and ₹13 lakh depending on its size and country it’s sourced from. This is in sharp contrast to just a few thousand rupees spent on regular bar equipment such as shakers and pans that can make most cocktails.
Santanu Chanda, beverage lead of Delhi’s Home Restaurant & Bar and Bartender Of The Year 2024 at Diageo World Class India cocktail competition, says that most new-age equipment is suited for smaller and more experiential bars. “Rotovap is best used for smaller 20-25 cover bars, where you can do a tasting menu of the distillates or batch cocktails. Centrifuge makes sense if cost and time are no barriers, but otherwise you can clarify cocktails using milk, cream and agar agar just the same. Sometimes bar owners want to play with these fancy gadgets, but bartenders must know whether it’s really required or not," he says.
Also read: Pisco: The fascinating story of Peru's national drink
At Bumipura in Mumbai’s Lower Parel, founder MingYang Chai casually lights up a glass chiller to instantly freeze a cocktail glass before serving the drink in it. A few steps away, Late Checkout* uses a 45-inch Yama Cold Drip Tower used in Slow Roast, a signature cocktail that mixes clarified 16-hour Vietnamese cold brew coffee made using the machine alongside vodka.
HyLo also uses an ultrasound sous vide machine that identifies the ingredients inside the bag, and uses sound waves to step up the infusion process. “Something that takes two to three hours can be done in 30 minutes with the machine. It is also used to clean expensive jewellery," Zamfirescu adds.
Take the newly-opened Japanese restaurant Gaijin in Mumbai, where the showstopper is the Mount Fuji cocktail. The cocktail arrives ensconced in a block of ice that is broken to reveal the bottle that pours two drinks. The ice has been specially curated and 3D printed for the cocktail. The vermouth in the cocktail goes through a cryofiltration process at minus 40 degrees celsius in which the liquid is removed and replaced with chrysanthemum hydrosol. The hydrosol itself is made with a special water distiller that is used to extract flavours from various ingredients.
“It took us almost four months and a lot of investment to research and get this cocktail done between the 3D ice moulds, cryofiltration and the hydrosol," says Nischal Suman, beverage head at Gaijin.
Bar manager Manoj Singh Rawat’s lab at Mehico in Kolkata includes a Brix scale to measure sugar content in cocktails, centrifuge to clarify fruit juices, rotovap for distilling perfume essence to spray over the glass, and ingredients such as hibiscus, muskmelon and tamarind to use in non-alcoholic drinks. For Izamel Sunset, the rotovap is used to infuse and create jasmine and strawberry waters that are mixed with Bacardi white rum, Aperol, and balanced with citric and malic acids.
Rawat’s latest bar programme in Delhi called Latoya features the Inca cocktail. This drink features three types of bell peppers that are pureed and clarified using the centrifuge, whereas the rotovap is used to blend jalapenos with water, and the sous vide is used to pair pisco and tomatillo that is further balanced with acids and mezcal.
“Depending on the theme, whether you want to do modern cocktails or twists on classics, you can figure out what new-age equipment you need. I wanted customers to know more about pisco so I am using techniques to add flavour to the spirit and make it more accessible," he says.
Chanda acknowledges that bartenders must know how to utilise modern equipment, saying that Home was the first bar in Delhi with its own dedicated lab with rotovap and other modern tools. “Asian bars, especially in Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong are ahead of us because almost every bar has their own lab. If we have to raise our profile in the international bar community, we must know how to use them at our disposal." Along with Pass Code Hospitality and beverage education platform Tulleeho, he launched a bar academy called Klarify in December to teach bartenders how to master advanced cocktail techniques and equipment.
On the other hand, Zamfirescu says that the new machines are the best example of proof of consistency.“Once you add the right ingredients, the drink will always be the same, even if a junior bartender makes it. These machines maximise our time and the different textures allow us to further improve quality and consistency."
Chanda says that he used to believe in tech a lot, but has changed his mind recently. “I am still curious about new technology, but fancy machines don’t make great bars. That comes from giving guests great service and cocktails made with a human touch."
Also read: How cocktails are named
Priyanko Sarkar is a Mumbai-based writer covering the F&B industry.
