Lounge
Meet the modern boilermakers of Goa
Summary
Pankaj Balachandran on his new bar Boilermaker, which opened in Goa's Siolim last week
Though better known for his cocktails, Pankaj Balachandran loves beer. Within the F&B realm, he’s best known for taking Countertop India, a bar consultation company, to great heights. But inside the dimly lit interiors of the pub Toto’s Garage, in Mumbai, he is just a keen hophead. While speaking about his new bar, Boilermaker in Siolim, Goa, Balachandran, 34, leans in as if sharing a secret. He wants to explain why he prefers the Kingfisher draught at Toto’s: “Look around. Most people are drinking it; this means they run out fast and refill more frequently. The beer will always be cold and fresh."
Balachandran’s last outtake as a bar-preneur was with south Goa’s acclaimed Tesouro, which died an untimely death in 2022, despite grabbing the fourth spot at Asia’s 50 Best Bars that year. Indian beverage company, Third Eye Distillery (TED) acquired Countertop (also in 2022) and it grew manifold under their aegis, while Balachandran took on the reigns to launch Short Story, a spirit brand with vodka, rum, and gin in its portfolio, as TED’s ‘pouring brand’. The phrase refers to a cheaper counterpart to their premium priced flagship craft gin, Stranger and Sons, as a more viable option for bars to use in their cocktails. A year and a half ago, sitting the team down to clarify that a brick-and-mortar bar was quite possibly not on the cards immediately was difficult. “I said, ‘Guys, I know you want a bar and I promise, I’ll do it for you,’" he recalls.
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While his team worked behind the scenes—launching spirits and designing the bar programme for establishments such as The Bombay Canteen in Mumbai, Izumi in Assagao, Goa, and Rick’s in Taj Mahal Hotel in Delhi—an opportunity presented itself. Earlier this year, Nakul Bhonsle of the craft beer company, Great State Aleworks, approached him to visit the space he had acquired in Goa. “I told Nakul, ‘Let’s do it properly: Countertop handles the bar, you do the beers.’ He was super excited." At this juncture, Balachandran floated the idea of naming the bar Boilermaker, which is a shot of whisky with beer.
At the Siolim space, which opened on 16 October, the bar programme is “easy", featuring a mix of “smashables": flavourful cocktails such as No Meloncholy with house melon liqueur, gin, and Lillet; or the papaya-and coconut-based Papa Issues. Then, there are ‘sessionables’—slightly more complex concoctions you would want to nurse for a while such as the walnut scotch whiskey-based Wolf Of Walnut Street. And a section dubbed “Say hello to my little friend", has drinks like Chotu Garibaldi, Baby Marg and Espresso Mar-tiny. “They’re like short serves. Not shots, but short cocktails. So, you can have four of them but it’ll be as expensive as having one cocktail. We want people to try multiple things," he explains.
The beer menu offers a gamut—from a Belgian witbier called Brightside to more experimental brews such as the 100% jowar variant called Long View. These will complement a succinct food menu designed by chefs Gayatri Desai of the Pune restaurant Ground Up and Rajat Mendhi of Mumbai’s food delivery kitchen Bombay Picnics. It features inventive bar snacks, like chorizo peanuts, alongside small plates like prawn toast and beef tongue chimichurri.
A few weeks before the team pulled back the veil on the new bar, Balachandran was in Mumbai for Boilermaker’s third preview shift at O Pedro—the other three were at the The Bar at 15 Stamford in Singapore; cocktail bar Soka in Bengaluru; and The Pickwick Chronicles bar in Bangkok. This is a curious move. While most restaurateurs are tight-lipped about new openings, Balachandran’s team launched the brand before it opened. They flushed social media with posts, taking consumers on their ‘making-of’ journey, alongside taking the brand to new cities and countries through takeovers. “We had the drinks menu, we had the food menu, we had the beer menu—everything was ready. But we realised that building a bar is going to take time. We saw the space and it was clear: there was a lot of work to be done. But could we be cheeky about it?" he ponders, referring to a video the bar’s Instagram page posted in August that shows the space in a desolate state.
“The preview shifts served as an advantage, because it allowed us to try different things. Could it be a song the team sings every time someone downs a boilermaker shot? We tried it at Soka and it was a riot," he says. “We know we want it to be a cool, fun, bar, but what does that experience entail? We are building it as we go."
Suman Quazi is a food writer and the creator of The Soundboard, a community dedicated to gourmands in India.
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