World’s 50 Best Bars – Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2020

Singapore has too many to keep count, with of course Jigger and Pony at # 1, and Atlas, Native and Manhattan at numbers, 5, 6 and 8 respectively.

Atlas at # 5 – Visited and Reviewed (2018)

Visual spectacle is always welcome, and I have never seen a bar more spectacular than Atlas. Housed in the iconic Parkview Square in the Bugis neighbourhood, it is a massive Art Deco-inspired lobby bar. Outside the building is a sculpture of Atlas, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and inside, the ceilings stretching up to the sky are covered with tales of Greek myth. At the back is a gin tower, housing over 1,000 bottles, and we are presented with a separate menu for it.

Having been intrigued by a Kyoto dry gin called Ki No Bi in the past, I ask She Wei, the young bartender from Kuala Lumpur, to mix me a Le Chiffre martini (named for the villain in Casino Royale). It combines gin (Ki No Bi), vodka, white port and absinthe, and is crisp and dry, just like the perfect martini should be. She then mixed up a couple of house specials, the Atlas Martini, for us, free of charge. A welcome fruity, yet floral taste, to what is a perfectly served up martini.

Native at # 6 – Visited and Reviewed (2018)

On to Amoy Street. The bar sources everything from around Asia — hence the name and the reason for spotting bottles of Old Monk and Paul John. It is also driven by the concept of ‘foraging’, something Vijay Mudaliar, the founder, believes in. The cocktails, which are expertly served up, are flavour forward, comprising carefully-sourced ingredients. Some are even made in-house, in their upstairs R&D lab, where they extract flavours from local ingredients.

We start with the Grasshopper, served in a small ceramic cup. With a float of coconut ice cream, it comprises Chalong Bay rum, wheatgrass, lemongrass, sugarcane, Thai basil and, to give it an extra kick, actual grasshoppers. Creamy and delicious, I did not even mind the grasshoppers.

With Old Monk on the menu, I cannot resist ending my evening with Chai. Served in a kulhad, it tastes of a medley of spices in addition to cashew milk, Darjeeling tea and Old Monk. As I leave, I promise to send Native a bottle each of DJ Mahua and Cazulo cashew feni (a promise kept).

Manhattan at # 8 – Visited and Reviewed (2018)

Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll was an infamous hitman during the Prohibition era in the USA, and the first bar I visit in Singapore pays homage to the town where he once ruled, once known as New Amsterdam but now better known as Manhattan. Located in Regent Hotel, on Cuscaden Road, the bar has topped Asia’s 50 Best Bars ranking two years in a row, and also broke into the world top 10, rising to #7 in the Drinks International World’s Best Bars rankings for 2017.

My first cocktail is Mad Dog, a take on the Old Fashioned, which tips its fedora to its ancestry by using Irish whiskey and, for a sweetener, a combination of Orange Curaçao and Maraschino liqueur. The drink itself comes smoke-filled and covered with a glass to trap the wild cherry bark aromas inside.

Next, I turn my eyes to the bar’s barrel-aged cocktail programme. Manhattan has borrowed from Spain’s Solera system (used to age sherry) to create their Solera Negroni. In retrospect, I would have done better to choose something else — the cocktail did not reflect the time spent in the barrel. However, my next pick though is spot on.

The Corpse Reviver #47, a variant of the Corpse Reviver (from a family of hangover cures), is so named because it is aged for 47 days and also has the Monkey 47 gin at its heart. The bracing cocktail is just right to set us up for our next bar.