Cover L-R: Apothecary co-founder Lik Hang Fung; Benevolent Singularity
L-R: Apothecary co-founder Lik Hang Fung; Benevolent Singularity
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Featuring 10 new cocktails with grand operatic names and associations with great virtues, Apothecary's new menu is an outlier in a world of Pornstar Martinis and Long Island Iced Teas
Since time immemorial, alcohol has served as a means to remove personal inhibitions and allow imbibers to let loose with a drinking companion or two—leading Charlie Chaplin to wryly make the observation: "A man's true character comes out when he's drunk". But what if the cocktail in your hand could kickstart a journey of self-introspection in a more literal sense?
That's the idea behind Central cocktail bar Apothecary's newest menu, titled Awakening Journey. Conceived by co-founder Lik Hang Fung, the collection of 10 cocktails blends metaphysical concepts with personality traits and virtues that define the course of a life. The names are a little wordier than your usual Pornstar Martini, and read more like the titles of a Philip Glass opera: cue the likes of Sentient Interlude, Unstoppable Entanglement, and Benevolent Singularity, each of which has been ascribed a corresponding virtue (time, perception, and kindness, respectively).
There's a tension in the ingredients, too. In Virtuous Rote (wisdom), yoghurt contends with grapefruit virgin olive oil for a creamy and dry cocktail; while Never Blooming Chasm features a compromise (its assigned virtue) between raspberry and red bell pepper. Most of the cocktails also come with a bite of food that elevates the flavour profile: All In Good Time features a garnish of roasted coconut flakes in a pandan leaf pouch, while Benevolent Singularity is paired with a moreish brownie.
Unpacking the complex undercurrents behind this inward-looking menu, Fung spoke to us about his inspirations, the art of expressing life experiences through clever turns in flavour, and learnings from his past and present menus to apply in the future.
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Above Sentient Interlude (Photo: Apothecary)
Sentient Interlude (Photo: Apothecary)
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What are your biggest sources of inspiration?
Whenever I design a menu, first thing I look to is the message. Oftentimes these messages are abstract and somewhat obscure, so I look at how I want to present these ideas in a more digestible form. Flavour is hardly the first thing I approach—when a menu cannot tell a story or a message, the drinks lose a lot of focus from a design standpoint. I look to everyday interactions, mythology, lore, feelings and emotions, amongst many other factors to decide on a design direction for the menu.
Why did you decide to structure the menu along different aspects of human interaction?
Interestingly enough for this current menu, I took inspiration from the different virtues of life, [specifically] the virtues that I learnt while I grew up. Awakening Journey is a compendium of life experiences structure through the lens of flavour. Each cocktail was named and then designed with that emotion surrounding it—for example, the idea of All In Good Time was the journey of flavour, from sweet to sour, to bitter, sour and finally sweet again, mimicking the ideology behind the idiom, where things will eventually be alright.
There’s some pretty complex metaphysical concepts in the cocktails. What’s the message you're trying to convey here?
With life as complex as is, I wanted to create a menu that could tell my story. The message conveyed in Awakening Journey is essentially my personal enlightenment. Each cocktail represents one trait that I hold dear in my heart. These characteristics define me as a person, and are the 10 most important characteristics for myself. The way we present the menu is to ask guests to choose a cocktail that they like, and to try and immerse themselves into the experience. Eventually, when they’ve tried enough of the cocktails, they can decide on their own order of cocktails that suit themselves, or better mimic their own experiences. Emotion is a powerful tool that can be translated through flavour. We’re really trying to touch on that, although to be perfectly honest, this menu has taught me a lot about that, so we’re definitely going to be doing an even better job in the coming menu.
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Above Virtuous Rote (Photo: Apothecary)
Above The Brilliant Light (Photo: Apothecary)
Virtuous Rote (Photo: Apothecary)
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Tell us about some of the more unconventional ingredients you’ve incorporated into the menu.
As opposed to using very unconventional ingredients, we take ingredients that are quite common and present them in a very strange or uncommon form. In the cocktail The Brilliant Light, corn soda is the prime flavour as well as its most dominant ingredient—corn for the longest time has been used in many different forms, most of it having some sort of substance. Corn juice is a very heavy liquid, starchy and grainy, so we tried to clarify it to [transform] the texture, and added acidity through different means. The resulting product is corn soda—a light, thin liquid that has a burst of flavour that tastes exactly like corn, yet somehow different.
What are some lessons you took from your previous cocktail menu?
The previous menu, The Herbalists Notebook, was a less story-driven take on the menu. It incorporated the legends and myths surrounding the ingredients, and used them as its main thematic component. I liked the idea a lot, and I think it was great for a first menu, but its very unlikely I’ll use it again simply because I have more experience and better ideas in mind now.
We used illustrations for that menu and continue to use them now because we learnt that people are very receptive to illustrations, especially because they are done exactly as the cocktails are presented, so the expectation is similar. We also learnt that by naming story-led cocktails without supplementary information, it shifts the burden to the operating staff to tell the stories, which leaves very little room for imagination. We’re definitely working on that now.
I’m in the process of finalising the content for the third menu, and this time round we’re using different supplementary materials to tell a story, hopefully to a more imaginative and personal extent. Its name is Gratitude—we’re very excited for this, because it’s a theme that I don’t think has been explored too much in the idea of cocktail menus, and the way we’re going to present it is rather explosive and different to anything we’ve done before.
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Gavin Yeung is a Hong Kong-based writer and was the editor at Tatler Dining. He has written across the realms of F&B, design, fashion and travel, with a focus on in-depth profiles and experiential features. Previously, he held editorial positions at Hypebeast, Soho House and Vogue Hong Kong. He’s also a keen photographer and aspiring home bartender, and is constantly thinking of original, Cantonese-inflected (and occasionally questionable) cocktails to shake up. Follow him on Instagram at @gaviny.
