Craft cocktails inspired by mountain treasures

In December, bartender and entrepreneur Yangdup Lama made a whirlwind trip to Nagaland. He came back with his mind and notebook filled with ideas. “We brought back bountiful ingredients,” he shares. Wild Naga tomato and the fermented rice drink zutho now feature in the limited-edition cocktail menu at three of his bars—Sidecar in Delhi, and Cocktails & Dreams and The Brook in Gurugram.

Mountain-inspired bar menus have come into their own, led by teams hailing from the hills. Kashmiri chef Prateek Sadhu started the restaurant Naar in Himachal Pradesh, while the husband-wife duo chef Viraf Patel and Prakriti Lama Patel run Across in Mumbai with food and drinks shaped by the Himalayan belt. Shad Skye in Shillong is fronted by Khasi bartender Rishot Laloo. Yangdup Lama, who grew up in Darjeeling, opened The Brook to pay tribute to mountain life. This region-specific theme in mixology reflects the broader shift in gourmet dining of using hyper-local ingredients and embracing cultural nuances.

“From wild herbs to berries and honey, as well as culinary techniques like smoking, every element carries the spirit of the land. These translate into distinctive cocktails, each one telling an inspirational story rooted in altitude, resilience and tradition,” says Lama.

Take pine, for instance. From leaves to barks and the cone, various parts of this ubiquitous mountain tree are used in cocktails. At The Brook, the drink Darjeeling Mail is built around pinewood smoked tea. Shad Skye uses the aromatic bark of the tree to create one of their hot-sellers Living Roots, named after the living roots bridges of Meghalaya. It also has Cherrapunji Gin brewed in the state mixed with pinewood bark infusion. It is finished with white chocolate, imparting the drink with a depth of flavour.

At Naar, Pineapple Express combines pine with apples—both available in abundance in Himachal. Their head bartender Dixit Kaundal smokes and ferments pine needle in honey sourced locally, while Burgundy and Scotch form the base of the drink. “It gets a refreshing twist with a touch of in-house apple liqueur. As an aromatic top-up, we add a few drops of pine needle oil,” he explains.

Bar experiments capture the landscape and mountain nostalgia too. One of the signature drinks and a crowd-favourite at The Brook is the umami-rich Maggi Point with tequila, fresh tomato and fresh coriander. In Lama’s words, it’s a flavour-filled getaway to “fond memories of mountain fun”. Prakriti of Across grew up in Nepal, and recalls winter afternoons when people sit out in the sun enjoying oranges. She created the tequila-based Citrus Sunrise drawing from this practice.

Sweeteners and bitters are elemental in mixology. The hills offer a spectacular diversity of honey. Bartenders have leveraged this by infusing honey with spices and fermenting it to extract complex flavours. Naar offers a twist on the trendy Picante with the drink called Hemp and Honey. The restaurant is located near Kasauli where hemp is essential to the local cuisine. To make this drink, its seeds are toasted till charred, mixed with tequila and honey for an earthy and smokey finish.

Bitters are an ingenious way to showcase the region’s produce combined with the culinary flex of bartenders. They source foraged herbs and berries to add that much needed bitter element in balanced drinks. One of Lama’s favourite mountain herbs is the Himalayan mugwort. “It forms the backbone of the cocktail Tite Pati, meaning bitter leaf in Nepali, a mountain-inspired reinterpretation of the Negroni built around a house-made mugwort vermouth that highlights its earthy, herbal bitterness.”

Kaundal makes a bitter with the wild Himalayan cherry, called pajja berry in Himachali. Apart from the acrid taste, its dry mouthfeel makes it perfect for a refined Martini, and goes into their popular cocktail Himalayan Vesper.

Preservation is a cornerstone of mountain cuisines and mixology. Apart from bitters, these bars preserve ingredients in vermouths, pickles, liqueurs, cordials and compote. Rishot Laloo, head bartender of Shad Skye, speaks of the sohiong berry (Prunus napaulensis) of Meghalaya. Its production is shrinking owing to a shorter growing season and over cultivation. The popularity of this berry spiked due to commercialisation as it goes into fruit wines, jams and squashes. He says, “Sohiong was available from August to October, and now one can find it for barely two months. It poses a challenges for us to procure it.” He preserves it by making a compote that is vacuum-sealed and frozen. It goes into their cocktail Bitchi Sour.

As seasons get unpredictable, Prakriti believes in making do with whatever is available “rather than trying to force certain ingredients.” It encourages them to change menus; the next one is due in spring.

The ingredient list is not limited to produce. It spans indigenous brews too. The star ingredient in Shad Skye’s Bitchi Sour is the rice beer bitchi prepared by Meghalaya’s Garo community. Then there’s the rare millet brew yaid krai from the state’s West Khasi hills which features in several cocktails. On similar lines, Lama introduced Nagaland’s rice wine zutho for his limited edition menu.

The secret sauce, however, is not preserved in jars. It lies in the recipe distilled through a bartender’s sense of place, experience and imagination.