Coffee cocktail winds you up

St Regis bartender Suwincha “Cha Cha” Singsuwan won the second Bacardi Legacy Cocktail Competition with an avian cocktail named the Wind-up Bird Chronicle after Haruki Murakami’s celebrated book.

“It’s my favourite novel,” said the Surin-born 28-year-old. “My cocktail is smooth but has a hidden grandiosity, so it reminded me of the author and a character in the novel. 

“The story’s about an unemployed man living on social security. One day he had to go looking for his missing cat and met a woman, Natme, who offered him a job helping other people.”

Suwincha said she didn’t spend a lot of time creating her winning cocktail. “First I mixed a little coffee with cognac, but it was too powerful. I needed something to tone it down while still keeping it intense.”

Last year’s Global Legacy champion Shingo Gokan deemed Suwincha “absolutely great – presentation, story and cocktail – and her technique is like a professional’s”. He was one of the judges for the Thai finals at the Phaya Thai Palace. “She made fresh coffee right onstage, using a Japanese siphon maker.”

Bacardi Thailand marketing manager Sanit Sopitgirapast said the competition got “back to the roots of real cocktail making” – like the ingredients and the aroma. “Her cocktail was an obvious choice. She said drinking her cocktail was like sipping coffee and smoking a cigar at the same time, making the experience much more pleasing.”

Suwincha next travels to Miami for a training workshop ahead of the world finals in Puerto Rico next month. She was asked if she’ll offer a more “international” presentation this time.

“No, I’ll focus on the legacy of what I have and what I’ve inherited,” she said. “That’s why I don’t put ice in my cocktail. It’s like drinking a cocktail and smoking a cigar outdoors in a cool breeze, like sipping coffee or tea after a meal. That kind of intensity and tenderness harmonises with cigar smoking.”

Suwincha and her fellow Thai finalists – Suchada Sopajaree from the Ying Yang Asian Gastro Bar and Phisit Kumpong of the Conrad Hotel Bangkok – emerged from a culling of 30 candidates from 129 entrants, a jump in participation from last year.

“It’s great that 80 per cent of the entrants were newcomers to our competition,” Sanit said. “And this year we had more bartenders who can speak English, who have more confidence and who can make better connections with viewers.”

Suwincha started out as a bartender while working at a club eight years ago. “I always looked at the bartender and thought he looked really clever with his performance behind the bar, and the customers were thrilled with his cocktails. That was the starting point – I wanted to get behind the bar!

“Of course you have to know all the types of alcohol and different kinds of cocktails. It’s not easy when you have to know more than a thousand classic cocktails and, most importantly, communicate to customers what’s so special about them. I had to learn how to use all the equipment as well. 

“But I put the emphasis on perfect mixing rather than flair bartending,” she said. “I’m always creating new cocktails for myself or based on customers’ requests. A good bartender should stay creative all the time.”

Suwincha wants her cocktails to become classics as well, “to be mixed everywhere around the world for the next 10 or 100 years, the same as we inherit the legendary cocktails from the past”.

Asked if cocktails are finally catching on in Thailand, she said, “Of course! There are many more people trying cocktails after the competitions in recent years. And bartenders are showing more interest in making good international cocktails.”

 

      The wind-up bird chronicle

 

25ml Bacardi Superior Rum

15ml Cognac

30ml Coffee (1 part espresso, 2 parts water)

15ml simple syrup