The Return of the Gin Palace 

By: Vikram Achanta  

In 2017, Yangdup, Paritosh, and I visited the Connaught bar at the Connaught Hotel in London, lured by tales of their Martini trolley. It was a perfect experience, as one can hope for in a bar. The Martini Trolley elevated the classic Martini, a drink theatre at its finest. The bar interiors were stunning, art deco in design, and looked, I’m sure, as good as when they opened in 2008, helping to break new boundaries. Helming the bar then, and still going on, is the impeccable Ago Perrone, and if you can’t trust an Italian to combine theatre and a cocktail, then who can you?  

The trolley was wheeled up to our table, and it had a range of gins for you to choose from. The Gin was chosen; the more challenging part was to select one of five homemade essences. The drink was stirred and then poured from high into our chilled Martini glass. The drink itself was perfection, as one could hope to expect, but most consumers, even on a good day, would find it hard to differentiate one expertly made gin martini from another. I’ve been to scores of the World’s Top 50 bars, as well as those that made it to Asia’s 50 Best Bars and India’s 30 Best Bars, and I see consumers befuddled by the menu, often-geeky terminology, and unfathomable ingredients, wondering what to order. What the consumer wants is to feel sexier when they leave the bar than when they enter it, a feeling that hopefully lasts long enough for them to revisit the same bar. I call this — sophisticated drinking, or drinking for adults.  

Gin as a spirit and the cocktails born from it are born for theatre. For all that tequila is taking over the world, its signature cocktails —the Margarita, the Paloma, and the omnipresent Picante —have a newer world swagger about them and are not born for the stage. The Martini and the Negroni, naming just two gin classics, have sexiness oozing from them. If the Picante is what you order to show you know, the Martini says that you know you do.  

In India, as the gin craze swept the world, Indian bartenders began to discover gin, and our gin bars came into their own, finding the versatility of the spirit. First up was Juniper at the Andaz in Delhi, whose range of Ginfusions became quickly famous as bartenders went wild with their experimentation on this most versatile of spirits. More than 20 of them were lined up behind the bar counter, pricking the consumer’s curious bone, as they also did at PDA in GK2, a joint venture between PCO and Diva, where Vikas Kumar, gave me a taster of first the Truffle infused Gin and then the Chamomile one, and then made me a Negroni, what else, with the Truffle Gin, and with the pedigree of Ritu Dalmia behind Diva, you knew you were getting the real thing.  

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” If there’s a sexier line in the movies, tell me what it is. Narrated, of course, by Humphrey Bogart, aka Rick, in Casablanca, as Ingrid Bergman, aka Ilsa, walks unknowingly into his bar, Rick’s, in Casablanca. Although Rick’s wasn’t a speakeasy itself, back in the day in New York when prohibition was on, speakeasy bars were all in vogue, so named, as you had to “speakeasy” with the correct password and enter.  

These bars were also known as Blind Pigs or Blind Tigers, not fortunately because you’d go blind if you drank the booze, but as these bars were touted as the reason to see a rare animal, for which you’d buy a ticket, and in exchange also get a drink. The drink of choice would 9 times out of 10 be one based on gin, as its versatility allowed bartenders to mix it freely with a range of mixers, as well as the ease with which it could be made, hence also the term ‘Bathtub gin’ back then. And gin continues to be a spirit of choice in the world’s speakeasies.  

PCO in Delhi was India’s first proper speakeasy bar. “When we opened PCO in 2012, gin was just beginning its resurgence, and we saw it as the perfect spirit for a bar rooted in craft and storytelling”, says Rakshay Dhariwal, co-founder Pass Code Hospitality. One of the cocktails on their first menu was the Clover Club — a pre-Prohibition classic that showcased gin with elegance and complexity. Rakshay continues to say, “That choice wasn’t just about nostalgia; it was a statement. Gin gave us a canvas to be creative, to balance tradition with innovation, and to shape a guest’s experience sip by sip. It’s always been central to our cocktail philosophy.” 

One of the more interesting speakeasy bars I visited was Dr. Fern’s Gin Parlour in Hong Kong, which unfortunately closed its doors earlier this year.  I was meeting Chandrakant Mohanty, a partner in Hong Kong’s Bar Mizunara, and it took me a while to locate it, tucked away in a corner of the Landmark Shopping mall. Named for a fictitious apothecarian who could dish out a range of gin-laced potions, it also symbolized the playfulness with which Gin could help create a bar concept.  

Gin, of course, is not just found in speakeasy bars. You can drink low with Gin, or you can drink high, as seen in Singapore’s stunning Atlas bar, which claims it’s the world’s largest gin bar. One thing for sure is that it’s one of the most gorgeous bars I’ve ever been to, with stunning displays of gin to the roof, prompting bartenders to scurry up and down ladders to fetch a particular bottle, adding to the theatre and excitement.  

I order an Ode to Odyssey, their take on a classic Gin cocktail known as the Ramos Gin Fizz. Created in New Orleans, this creamy cocktail can be the bane of a bartender’s existence, as it can take a good 12 minutes to shake.  

Apart from theatre and experience, customers also crave variety, and gin also offers that in spades. Its cocktails are also always up to reinventing themselves, and if the Connaught offered up a perfectly served up classic Martini, then last year at Harry’s Bar in Venice, when I asked for a Martini, imagine my surprise to find it served in a shot glass. I thought I was being left short-changed, but the drink was chilled to perfection, and liquid ecstasy flowed through my veins as I drank it. Gin and the drinks will never fail to surprise you; although other spirits may come and go, this is one that will give bars and bartenders a never-ending playground for consumers to find delight. Here’s to the next gin joint you find yourself in! 

Vikram is founder and CEO of Tulleeho, a drinks education and consulting firm, now in its 25th year. He is co-founder of 30BestBars India, India’s leading bar awards and ranking platform, India Bartender Week, India’s first knowledge based platform for the bar community, the India Drinks Retail Awards, that recongizes the top liquor retailers in the country. 

Read the gin issue here.