Hungover? Dorina from Xian Tea tells us that red tea is the answer. Caffeine is always a great friend when battling a hangover, as are antioxidants to counteract all the free radicals consumed in alcohol. Red teas have both and have been used in eastern cultures for centuries for this exact purpose.
At a tea tasting in The Shrine of Satisfaction, Dorina introduced is to a number of high quality, single origin teas. Both cold brewed and hot, and in green, black, white, and red varieties. The red teas we sampled had a beautiful dark chocolate note to them.
Quick tip to seeing if your tea is of high quality? Unravel the leaves. If the leaves are whole and unbroken, you’re likely dealing with a high quality tea that was crafted and processed by hand.
There is a high standard shown in terms of execution and hospitality. The menu is surprisingly straightforward. Drinks here are mostly classics but done in a uniquely Employees Only fashion. We noticed a very heavy emphasis on fresh ingredients throughout the menu, which was divided into two sections.
Off of one side, titled “EO Classics,” we ordered the Ginger Smash. Muddled fresh ginger root and fresh pineapple shaken with Havana Club 3 year rum. A little bit of maraschino liqueur and lime to round that out, and you have a tasty take on the old dark and stormy that is worthy of the tropics and of a country that has long been the shipping trading post of the straits. It’s definitely an Employee’s Only classic drink that fits right in for Singapore.
The reverse page of the menu, list what they refer to as “Tropical Classics.” From here we ordered the EO Paloma: cimarron blanco tequila, house made grapefruit cordial, fresh lime juice, and a pinch of something called black lava salt. The latter sits right on top of some perfectly cut ice and is a layer that you both smell and taste as sea salty and slightly smoky. It is a taste of the seas that adds spice to this much beloved cocktail.
One thing that is not often discussed when talking about great bars is the seating plan. We must say that Employees Only stands out in this regard. Upfront there’s an exciting and entertaining cocktail bar where people who have come to party do kind of cram around. But that’s a good thing people are having fun and engaging with strangers. Further towards the back of the space, you find boots seating. People in larger groups, or small parties friends enjoy hanging out in this section. You still get all the electricity from the space, plus the fun live dj music, but you’re also not too crammed together and have enough space to chat.
Our hats must be tipped to both Steve Schneider and Bryan Bonifacio, bartenders who we first met in Manila during Manila Cocktail Fest. We had already seen them in two Manila bars, and both times they lifted the crowd, somehow in complete control of a location’s vibe and mood. If there’s an electricity in a bar, these two are the dynamos.
Finally getting to see them at Employees Only SG, we found that the experience was doubled by the home court advantage. At the end of the day you come to a bar like this for two reasons. First is to have high quality, expertly crafted beverages. The second reason is because you want to have a great time. Employees Only Singapore serves up both without compromise. In a word, this bar is “electric.”
Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They are all literally in this drink! Dubbed “Gift of the Magi,” the two latter ingredients enter in as an aromatic of atomised essential oils. Then, pear and white cacao drive sweetness through this champagne based cocktail. It’s fun and celebratory, layered and interesting.
We had this at Junior, a favorite of ours in Singapore. With an excellent, friendly, and inventive team, we tip our hats to a bar that deserves extra recognition on this special day. A little bar that could and can.
Follow @juniorthepocketbar on Instagram.
“Gift of the Magi” is shown here paired with the bar’s seasonal snack of warmed Christmas cookies, which caps off a special insert to the main menu: an all holiday offering of five Christmas themed drinks. A touch too sweet? Maybe. But the holidays are a time for comfort food and drink anyway. The special menu even has Junior’s take on the holiday classic of eggnog. We also tried “A Carajillo For Christmas.” That drink features a absolutely delectable topping of gingerbread cream!
And on that note, Merry Christmas from Kayo, Buffy, Ynna, Naina, and Veronica. That’s all of us who write for you at Daily Drink. We wish you a season filled with excellent meals and even more exceptional drinks!
Daily Drink Magazine editor-in-chief, Kayo Cosio reflects upon his earliest days at Kendo Creative and what it was like to run the studio’s specialty coffee slow bar using only a hand grinder and an induction cooker to heat his water for brewing. In this episode we take a look at the customer’s role in the coffee chain and how thinking of the experience of serving coffee as an a kind of public art can increase the value of the beverage itself.
This journal will be a new format for daily drink which will allow our team to explore their thoughts, philosophies, and discoveries when it comes to beverages, drink design, and the culture of service. what do you think of this format? please do let us know by commenting. thank you very much!
We have a new talk show called Let’s Coffee a collaboration between Yardstick and Daily Drink Mag. Hosted by @kayocosio
On this Thursday, September 12th, join us for the first live recording as we produce it from Honeycomb Manila’s Collaborative Studios At Double Dragon Plaza. We’ll be speaking to @teredomine of @kalsadacoffee during this pilot episode.
Activities start at 10 AM and participation in the activity itself is for free, which means that you can listen live and ask questions to the guest. However, the coworking space itself does have a standard hotdesk rate of Php75 per hour. So you can expect to spend Php150 from 10 AM – 12 noon. As always, this rate will include free-flowing Yardstick specialty coffee: either espresso from our Decent DE1PRO or iced/hot drip coffee from our Fetco brewer — which is maybe our favorite cafe machine these days alongside our La Marzocco Strada AV.
If you can’t make it to the live event, please join us online by subscribing to Honeycomb’s YouTube page, as well as to Yardstick and Daily Drink Magazine on Instagram.
Honeycomb Manila on YouTube: www.youtube.com/honeycombnow
Most of the content on each channel will be the same, but there will be some differences between platforms. We just want to make it as accessible to everyone as possible, whatever platform works best for you. Maybe you want an audio podcast version? Let us know. 🙂
To truly understand tequila, you must first grasp what mezcal is. Mezcal itself can be made from almost 30 different agave plants, so what’s the difference between one agave and the next? It’s the kind of subject you wish someone could guide you through, step by step.
Enter Jay Khan. Jay is the mind behind the award-winning Mexican-inspired craft cocktail bar in Hongkong named COA, which takes its name from the tool used to hand-harvest an agave plant in the process of creating mezcal. Khan is devoted to promoting the agave fueled culture of Mexico, paying homage to it through an impressively deep library of mezcal, and signature cocktails he created to celebrate the sacred plant. Keep following Daily Drink and we’ll soon tell you a little more about the ones we’ve tasted.
In recent news, Jay just got awarded as Hong Kong’s 2019 Bartender of the Year by The Bar Awards for the second time. Congratulations, Jay!
Stylish modern minimalist, clean, cozy and picturesque. Elixir Coffee has got those elements about their shop down pat, quite similar to many other new designer coffee shops. But what we think sets them apart is how they’ve kept a very friendly, small neighborhood cafe vibe going. You walk into the room, hear the barista casually chatting with a couple of customers, see a small group of people enjoying conversation on a bench outside the window and you immediately get the sense of how comfortable everyone is. It’s the kind of place where you want to kick back on a Saturday afternoon or meet up with friends straight after a long day at work. It also helps that they serve delicious coffee. We heard about their homemade honeycomb latte and just had to try it. It’s essentially an espresso shot topped with foamy milk and a sprinkling of their special honeycomb crumbs. As you drink, the honeycomb melts and blends more into the coffee, giving you a slightly burnt caramel sweetness that’s delightful at every sip.
Elixir Coffee has recently moved to Sheung Wan from the last time we visited them at Haven St, Causeway Bay, but they have managed to carry over the same inviting atmosphere, together with their exquisite design sensibilities and enjoyable coffee. Make sure to include them in your Hong Kong cafe hit list.
All black coffee brewing is done using some version of these same simple steps. But the devil is in the details. The baristas and brewers who stand out from the rest are dedicated, meticulous, and – in the case of Lê Hoàng Sang – possess situational awareness. Known simply as Sang, this barista has been involved in building many shops across his country of Vietnam. We ran into him at Hanoi’s Gau Coffee & Bakery (link to previous DD article), when they were just setting up the place in the city’s heritage district known as The Old Quarter. If you ever get the chance to chat with Sang, you’ll find that he has a very balanced approach to coffee and a great respect for Specialty Coffee.
When you brew a new coffee, you look at all of your given parameters,
such as your roast date, the origin of the coffee, and even the density of the
bean. These will determine how you brew the coffee. They’ll affect the grind
size, the ratio of coffee to water, and the temperature of the brew.
To Sang, setting up a café to seemed to be very similar to
brewing coffees. He reads the parameters of the area and adjusts. Not
everything will be the best, not everything will be specialty. but that doesn’t
mean that it can’t be perfect.
I first heard about Benton’s Old Fashioned on a now-defunct podcast called Diggnation, from a guy named Kevin Rose. I have been a fan of Kevin since his days as a production assistant in cable tv and (if I remember correctly) was living in the San Francisco basement of a certain third wave coffee entrepreneur who would go on to be quite important as well. On Diggnation circa 2008, Kevin spoke of his trip to NYC, and how he went to this prohibition-style, secret cocktail bar called a “speakeasy” which was hidden behind a phone booth of another restaurant. He had this bacon-infused Old Fashioned cocktail and what sounded like an incredible time. The name of the bar? “Please Don’t Tell.”
It was the first time I had ever really heard of a modern-day speakeasy. I didn’t even really drink back then. But as I heard about what I came to know as PDT, I knew two things: 1) after following him for around a decade at this point, I trusted Kevin’s taste pretty implicitly; and 2) this was the start of something special.
Sure enough, the speakeasy concept and the fat-washing process used to create Benton’s Old Fashioned blew up seemingly overnight.
My own city of Manila had our first legit speakeasy open only a few years later in 2011. And each time I heard of a similar concept being started up in my city or elsewhere, I always thought “Oh. They’re doing the PDT thing.” And I would go over and try that bar’s version of the Old Fashioned.
Fast forward to today, PDT has opened its first ever permanent branch, right here in South East Asia, gracing Hong Kong’s Central area for little over a year now. Since I’ve never been to NYC, this was my first chance to finally try the now famous Benton’s Old Fashioned, a drink I have wanted to taste since I first heard Kevin’s story in 2008.
As I sipped the drink, I could see how this is where it all started.
Both for my own journey through beverage, as well as for the last decade of experimental cocktail service as a global culture explosion. On its own, Benton’s Old Fashioned was not mind blowing. It was round, balanced (just the right amount of infusion), and sophisticated. Ten years down the road, this drink is not to be considered as “experimental,” as it certainly was in 2008. There are other cocktails on PDT’s 2019 menu to play that role. However, it’s not a stretch to say that this is the drink that dug the trench from which countless cocktail bars the world over have erected their own respective standards. And that is really something special.
Until today, Benton’s Old Fashioned is still the most ordered beverage in both the NYC and HK bars.
Now, it would be wise to take this writing of mine with a
little grain of salt. While tasting this beverage, I must admit that it was
quite difficult to separate my emotions and anticipation from the actual
tasting experience. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe it’s not. And maybe that
influence and power in word-of-mouth marketing is part of the PDT magic. I
honestly cannot tell.
But I can tell you this: it was one of the best drinks of my life.
Maybe it was the journey. Maybe it was the place. Maybe it was the incredible hospitality shown to me by Chanel and Adam who work at PDT. Maybe it was the drink itself. Maybe it was everything all at the same time. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.
It’s worth finding out for yourself. Find that phone booth and dial “1.”
— Kayo Cosio (@kayocosio) Chief Strategist at Honeycomb Manila, Publisher of dailydrinkmag.com
