When I’ve had a cocktail or two, I often imagine the places behind what I’m drinking: The English garden of the Pimm’s Cup. The Italian piazzas of the Negroni. The sun-drenched islands of Honey Ti Punch. The Manhattan of the Manhattan.
And as a longtime devotee of the fire and spice of Indian food, I’ve been wondering: Where is the cocktail that best conjures India?
Some might make a case for the gin and tonic, but the G&T originated with English colonizers, trying to make their antimalarial quinine more palatable. As a drink to represent the true India, its claim is more than a little suspect.
Then again, let’s be honest: So is my question. Seeking a cocktail to represent the complex, “authentic” (an endlessly unpackable and arguable word) flavors of a vast, diverse country, one where alcohol doesn’t play the same role in the culinary culture, is likely problematic from the start.
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Stateside these days, a restaurant that seeks relevancy is almost required to have a decent cocktail menu. But in India, cocktails have not historically been a big part of fine dining, says Dante Datta, partner at Tapori and Daru in Washington, D.C., where creative cocktails are a big focus of what they call the “Indian-ish” menus. Datta, who grew up with Bengali food at home and worked at both Rasika and D.C.’s lauded Columbia Room cocktail bar, told me that “drinking culture in India varies a lot, and beer or spirits have been more common socially.” That’s starting to change in cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, “where cocktail culture is having a real boom, and bartenders are leaning into both global techniques and Indian flavors.”
Here in the U.S., diners who drink alcohol have long turned to Indian lagers or white wines with the food, natural pairings to cut through its rich sauces and provide relief and counterpoint to powerful flavors and spice. There remain many Indian restaurants that, if they even offer cocktails, tend to have drinks that stumbled off a TGI Fridays menu circa 1992. One of my favorite local Indian spots offers a French martini and a Blue Hawaiian, drinks that haven’t been in vogue since Wham! broke up and that, more important, have no connection to the elegant, complex dishes on their menu.
On some level, I get it: Building a cocktail program is an investment, and it’s not easy to find someone who has both a cocktail background and the familiarity (or the curiosity and humility) required to fuse that knowledge with Indian cuisine. But so many of its flavors and ingredients are begging for exploration in drinks.
And some of the best Indian restaurants in the United States have been creating a range of complex drinks that make use of the range of Indian ingredients – chai and other teas, fruits such as mango and tamarind, thandai (a drink made with a mix of pistachios, almonds, rose petals and spices), ghee (clarified butter used in cooking and religious rituals), curry leaves and various spice blends – to create cocktails saturated in the tradition of both classic cocktails and subcontinental cuisine, always mindful of the diverse preferences of their own guests.
Before his departure earlier this September, bartender Giuseppe Gonzalez had been building the program at Bar Jadu at Tamba in Las Vegas. With his Puerto Rican background, Gonzalez says, he’s used to being in rooms where he’s the only brown person, and as such, he’s sensitized to how it feels when outsiders to a culture or country come in with ideas about “elevating” a cuisine, or where they pick ingredients or names that have cultural significance they may not grasp.
That comes into play with alcohol itself. A good nonalcoholic selection is standard at most bars these days, and at Tamba, Gonzalez estimates, 10 to 20 percent of the clientele are Muslim; many Hindus also avoid alcohol. Himself now a nondrinker, Gonzalez built a menu segment called Elixirs of Serenity, focused on interpretations of Indian nonalcoholic drinks such as mango lassi, jal-jeera (a cumin and mint drink), falooda (a milk-based drink flavored with rose syrup and sweet basil seeds), and an Indian spiced lemonade known as nimbu pani – Tamba’s version is called the Vijay Singh, a riff on the Arnold Palmer. He wanted to respect their original context, he says, and “adding alcohol to nimbu pani would have just made bad nimbu pani. It’s supposed to be refreshing, not dehydrating.”
By contrast, in the Elixirs of Transformation part of the menu, Gonzalez reinterpreted the flavors of the gin and tonic in new ways, including the Peacock Martini, a drink that combines gin, citrus solution and a tonic syrup in visibly separate layers of color in the glass. The bar pairs fresh apple juice with jal-jeera and infuses the classic English Pimm’s Cup with Indian Assam tea and rosewater, in what he cheekily refers to as a “reverse colonization.”
Learning his way into the ingredients, he tells me how complicated things got when he suggested that the restaurant make its own chai. The restaurant owner explained that “chai is not only regional, it’s hyperlocal, it’s specific to families.” It reminded him of a drink from his Puerto Rican background: “A lot of cultures have this – ‘this is not how you make the coquito. My grandmother didn’t make the coquito that way.’”
Gonzalez worked closely with the kitchen to ensure he was staying true to what the Indian chefs regarded as correct. “Everything at Tamba that is Indian, every kind of liquid, the kitchen makes. Give me the palette, and I will paint.”
At Tapori, the bar makes multiple cocktails using mango, none bearing any resemblance to the popular mango lassi that so many love as a cool, sweet refresher in Indian cuisine.
The INS Vikrant, named for a ship in the Indian Navy, uses a green mango-infused rye in a riff on the classic cocktail Remember the Maine. The drink’s original name, Remember the Mango, was a play on that, but general manager E. Jay Apaga says they changed it because too many people expected a drink that was sweet, creamy and orange. The bar also makes a brine out of tangy, spicy achari pickles – which often include mango – for a riff on the dirty martini. They have to explain the flavor to newbies, but “people of the diaspora, who are from India, know [achari pickles] and want the drink. And mostly they want to know ‘How did you do that’?” says Apaga.
Their Lakhan’s Old Fashioned employs a chaat masala syrup, a spice blend that includes amchoor powder (made from dried unripe green mangoes) in its roster of ingredients, for a drink that is recognizable as a riff on the classic but with a savory, funky note.
At the restaurants that are part of the Unapologetic Foods – including Semma, Dhamaka and Adda in New York City – beverage director Mike Reed developed the cocktail menus in collaboration with the Indian chefs, who helped him learn more about flavor profiles and appropriate combinations. He got excited about using black and green cardamom in a drink, but the culinary team discouraged it, pointing out that they don’t use both spices together.
Reed took that note, but other times he’ll push back a little bit. He had a debate with the restaurant owner about a drink at Dhamaka that included avocado, and the owner was concerned because avocado is not Indian. Reed says during the first tasting he ever did for the chefs, they objected because a drink had raspberries in it. “And I said, ‘Are you telling me no one in India is eating raspberries?’ And they said, ‘Well, we do now, but it’s not very Indian,’ and I said, ‘Well, let me tell you something that wasn’t Indian until about 500 years ago: chiles,” which were not used in India until the 16th century.”
“This is the challenge,” he says. “You really want to learn the tradition of the cuisine, but cuisines are not static. They evolve, they’re dynamic and they’re constantly interacting with other cuisines. And India, for most of human history, is like the navel of the world. Everything is flowing in there.” Reed’s Avocado Avatar – a mix of agave spirits infused with fenugreek and serrano chile, with avocado, lime, ginger and a chaat masala spice blend – is still on the menu and remains the top-selling drink.
The mixing of traditions is part of what Reed loves most about the program they’re trying to create. “Cocktails are a cuisine. As Americans, the first thing we contributed to international gastronomy was the cocktail. The way we try to approach it here, we’re not an Indian restaurant with a liquor license selling kitschy mixed drinks. We’re going to combine two different culinary paradigms – classic mixology and Indian cuisine.”
Cocktails may not have a long tradition in India, but I love to see the sprouts that emerge as cultures and people intermingle in new spaces. It’s one of my favorite things about food and drink, and really about America at its best. That’s much more than a little cocktail column can grapple with, but next time I make chitranna (Indian lemon rice), I’m going to save some of the citrus, ginger and curry leaves for my cocktail shaker, and look for new ways to muddle their flavors into a drink – one I can use to toast our beautiful complexity, and the hope that we protect it.
Lakhan’s Old-Fashioned
This spicy riff on the Old-Fashioned, named for a street-smart character in a Bollywood film, uses a split base of bourbon and brandy for complexity, and layers in a rich chaat masala syrup. The Indian spice blend includes amchoor (dried mango) powder, cumin, black salt and other savory spices.
Total time: 15 minutes, plus time to cool the syrup
Servings: 1 (makes 1 cocktail)
Make ahead: The chaat masala syrup needs to be prepared and completely cooled before serving.
Storage: Refrigerate the chaat masala syrup for up to 2 weeks.
Where to buy: Jaggery can be found at Indian or South Asian markets, and online; chaat masala can be found at Indian and international markets, and online.
INGREDIENTS
For the chaat masala syrup
7 ounces (200 grams) crumbled or powdered jaggery (see Where to buy and Substitutions)
Scant 1/2 cup (100 grams) water
2 teaspoons chaat masala (see Where to buy)
For the cocktail
1 large ice cube, plus smaller ice cubes
1 ounce bottled-in-bond bourbon, such as Old Forester 1897 or Heaven Hill
1 ounce Spanish brandy, such as Lustau Solera Reserva
1/8 ounce (3/4 teaspoon) chaat masala syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters
Strips of orange peel, for garnish
DIRECTIONS
Make the syrup: In a small (2-quart) saucepan over low heat, combine the jaggery and water, and heat, stirring gently until the jaggery is fully dissolved. Bring the liquid to a simmer but do not let it come to a boil. Add the chaat masala and gently simmer until infused, 2 to 3 minutes. Line a fine-mesh strainer with a double layer of cheesecloth and strain the syrup through it into a liquid measuring cup. You should have about 1 cup. Let cool completely, then transfer to a clean bottle. Use right away, or refrigerate until needed.
Make the cocktail: Add the large ice cube to a rocks glass and set aside. Fill a mixing glass with smaller ice cubes, and add the bourbon, brandy, chaat masala syrup, Angostura bitters and orange bitters. Stir until well chilled and diluted, about 15 seconds, then strain into the glass. Express an orange peel over the drink, garnish with the peel and serve.
Substitutions:
Jaggery >> panela, muscovado, demerara or brown sugar.
Variations:
Try rye whiskey in place of bourbon for more spice; swap cognac or other brandy, if desired.
Nutritional Facts per drink | Calories: 168, Fat: 0 g, Saturated Fat: 0 g, Carbohydrates: 3 g, Sodium: 0 mg, Cholesterol: 0 mg, Protein: 0 g, Fiber: 0 g, Sugar: 3 g
This analysis is an estimate based on available ingredients and this preparation. It should not substitute for a dietitian’s or nutritionist’s advice.
Adapted from Dante Datta and E. Jay Apaga of Tapori restaurant in Washington, D.C.