The Tasting Panel magazine

Aug 09

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S ingapore is an island city-nation situat- ed on a historically important shipping route, with a population mixed between Chinese, Malays and Indians. I expected to find a blend of cultures in Singapore, but was amazed to find such an outside influence on local mixology. As a judge for the Cherry Heering Acces- sorize 2009 contest, I spent part of the week with bartenders from 15 countries who were pairing cocktails . . . not with Singapore's cel- ebrated cuisine, but with cocktail dresses. The winning drink was created by Eiji Miyazawa of Japan. Japanese bartenders have a fair presence in Singapore at spots such as Coffee Bar K and Orgo, where the drinks can be simple, but where the precision of the bartenders and the level of service are superior to that in most bars I've visited internationally. American bartenders are popping up in Singapore as well. I just missed Eben Free- man of Tailor in New York and Ryan Fitzger- ald of Beretta in San Francisco, but had an Audrey Saunders cocktail made by Julian Serna of Sydney. These bartenders are being brought in for guest stints by the AvroKo group, which is designing several bar and restaurant concepts in Singapore. The Australian influence is further seen at venues like Tippling Club, a temple to mo- lecular gastronomy and mixology run by Australian cocktailian Matthew Bax and chef Ryan Clift. To find out why so many foreign bartend- ers are showing up in Singapore, I spoke with Treys Ladrido, an American who is Corporate Beverage Director of microbrew- ery Brewerkz, tequila bar Café Iguana and wine-focused restaurant WineGarage. She is bringing in Aisha Sharpe and Willie Shine of New York's Contemporary Cocktails to do staff training for all of her venues, as well as additional guest mixologists every two months. "The cocktail movement is hitting Singa- pore fast and furiously," says Ladrido. "The learning curve is steep, and there are not a lot of cocktail and spirits training programs being offered, as in other major markets. For example, we carry around 400 brands of spir- its, and in the past year we have been offered training twice—once by Sagatiba and once by Don Julio. In relation to wine, we carry almost t he same number of labels, and on average we get three to five offers a month for training." Ladrido says bartending is still seen locally as a low-level, temporary job rather than a profession, but she hopes to help change that. "Our goal is for each guest bartender to be a role model and impart inspiration to our staff by offering first-hand professional perspec- tives and guidance on the dynamic spirits and cocktail industry." Once again, Singapore is a center of inter- national trade and exchange, but this time, it's an exchange of ideas and expertise in the craft of mixology. Asia story and photos by Camper English Fling Bartenders from abroad sling drinks in this melting-pot metropolis International bartenders at the Cherry Heering Accessorize 2009 contest, left to right: Nick Sitbon (Sweden), Claudio Bedini (U.K.), Stefanos Paraskevoudis (Greece), Simone Guido (Spain), Darren Whitehead (Denmark) and Régis Celabe (France). 84 / the tasting panel / august 2009 Singapore

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