(Top) Virgin Green, (Second from the top) Capsicum Cocktail, (Bottom) Ginger Rum

Forget Sex on the Beach and even the Screwdriver. Those are mundane, almost old, old hats. Cocktails are getting trendier by the glassful and bartenders are at their creative best, trying to outsmart the competition at the bar down the road.

If cocktails have never been more fashionable than they are today, you could also say that our modern day bartenders have morphed into chefs behind the bar counters as they go about tossing them into your tall (or whatever else it may be) glass.

They have created ‘cooked’ cocktails, heady with coffee infusions. There are edgy, ‘edible’ cocktails loaded with vodka caviar (courtesy the miracles of molecular mixology) and even spicy cocktails that pack in a punch what with capsicum and chilli flakes turning up the heat. You can even expect poached fruit in your next concoction.

So let’s check out some seriously stylish sips that are making their way into bar menus at some hip and happening bars across the city.

SPILLING THE BEANS

Coffee is no newcomer to bar counters. But mushroom soup and yoghurt (yes, you read that right), in coffee-based cocktails most certainly are.

Coffee-based cocktails are doing great as dessert cocktails — as an after-dinner, heavy and sweet drink. The coffee helps keep you wide awake for the action that may lie ahead and the aroma is just right to combat the current muggy weather. According to the bartending brigade, it’s the rainy spell that has been the driving force behind the plethora of coffee cocktails.

Anirban Gupta, F&B manager, Hotel Lindsay, says: “Coffee cocktails are growing in popularity and the best part is that they are very versatile. You can serve them chilled or otherwise, depending on the weather. Those looking for dessert cocktails can add ice-cream to make them heavier.”

Gupta is cooking up alcohol-based, coffee soup cocktails (quite like fruit soup cocktails) and serving them both hot and chilled.

For his signature drink, the Coffee Mushroom Cappuccino cocktail (see box), Gupta blends two very different flavours effectively. And then there’s the Hot Bailey’s Espresso, a soupy concoction made by heating Bailey’s Irish cream, Espresso coffee and fresh cream together with a little sugar. Whole coffee beans go into the mix for added aroma.

Rajnish Rao, senior captain at The Park Hotel’s Bodhi Bar in Tantra, has authored a new coffee cocktail with yoghurt called Wild Silk. The drink blends gin and coffee liqueur. It’s made by layering coffee powder, sweetened yogurt and Blue Curaçao on a base of crushed ice and mixing it with gin and coffee liqueur.

THE SPICE ROUTE

The tipple trail is also rooting for tangy, spicy flavours. If you thought that spice in alcohol was restricted to mulled wine or spiced rum, think again. From chaat masala to chilli flakes, anything with a bite is making its way into a bartenders arsenal.

The city’s mixers and shakers are playing with everyday flavours to infuse their cocktails with them. But they ensure that the spicy elements are light and subtle and that the bite does not overpower the flavour of the alcohol base.

Rao has turned up the heat with his chilli-flavoured cocktail, contrarily called Absolute Cooler. For this, he uses Absolut vodka and Cointreau with a pineapple juice base and black/rock salt along with green chilli flakes for the spicy kick. He serves it in a scooped out sweet lime that infuses the drink with the lemony aroma. Rao says: “Too many spices interfere with the subtlety of a drink. But green chilli is perfect for adding a hint of heat which also makes the drink exciting.”

Maloy Mukherjee at the Amoda Spa Bar takes things a step further with Tabasco sauce and chaat masala to create the Spicy Witch. He mixes orange vodka with Cointreau and Dubonnet and adds them to a base of orange and lemon juice. He finishes it with two dashes of Tabasco sauce and ample chaat masala to rim the glass. “Chaat masala and the Tabasco sauce appeals to Calcuttans as they love their spices,” says Mukherjee.

“Spicy cocktails go well with the quintessential monsoon fried food,” says Sheikh Samin, bartender of Shisha. “And the right blend of spices can be therapeutic. Just try a hot toddy (with its clove overdose) when you’re feeling down, and you’ll feel the difference,” he says.

Samin’s signature at Shisha is a capsicum cocktail. He de-seeds a capsicum and soaks the shell in vodka for a week. He takes slices of this vodka-infused capsicum and adds it to 45ml vodka, fresh pepper, a little lime juice and coriander leaves. Occasionally he adds some tomato juice to the blend.

He’s also packing a punch by mixing dark rum and fresh lime juice (topped up with soda) with ginger and cinnamon.

BEST FRUIT FORWARD

(From top) Rain Odyssey, Thai Grape Mojito, Midori Melon Mojito

Fruity flavours continue to hold sway, though the lime ‘’ lemony summer drinks are no longer in. Midori melon is winning favour with the city’s tipplers while poached fruit concoctions are in demand. Fresh fruit has been the mainstay of cocktails in recent times.

Mukherjee’s pet at Amoda is a Midori Melon Mojito which he tosses up with flavoured rum (green apple) mixed with Midori liqueur and Galliano. He throws in the regulation fresh lime juice and mint leaves. For the added punch, there are Cointreau soaked cherries for garnish.

The mojito gets an interesting twist in the hands of Subhashish Ghosh at Underground in Hotel Hindusthan International. Ghosh goes for sugarcane juice as the base for the mojito, while tossing in ginger juliennes and lemon chunks into the drink. The mojito assumes another avatar when Ghosh muddles Thai grapes with lemon chunks to create the cocktail.

“The essence of fresh fruit cocktails lies in using seasonal fruits. So I try to use whatever is available — from strawberries to sugarcane. The fruits also allow me to be more creative,” says Ghosh.

Amrik Dey at the Westview Bar & Grill at ITC, The Sonar, makes liberal use of Midori in his vodka-based cocktail, Virgin Green. And supplementing the mellow flavours of Midori is tender coconut water that he uses as the base of the cocktail. He adds it to the Midori-laced vodka with a dash of fresh lime and sugar syrup. He also uses seasonal fruits like pineapple, wine and vodka cocktails like the Rain Odyssey.

Dey is also in high demand for his cooked fruit cocktails. We recommend Cloud Nine, for which he poaches a pear in Marsala wine, to which he adds vodka, sugar syrup and a dash of lime. “A fruit-based cocktail is something that offers enormous scope for experiments. So from fruit soups (fruit cooked to form a soup) infused with alcohol, to poaching fruits for cocktails, you can try your hands on a range of things,” he says.

SOLID HITS

Edible cocktails are the order of the day. And celebrated barman Irfan Ahmed is doing some serious magic with molecular mixology. For those who’ve been living under the rocks for a while, molecular mixology is a growing trend where edible alcohol, alcohol-based foams and caviar — all the works used in Ferran Adria-esque molecular gastronomy — is being employed to make an edgy drink.

People consider this both elitist and experimental, though more cocktail-aficionados are getting hooked to the concept and are trying their hands at it.

Ahmed is all set to knock your socks off with an edible cocktail made out of lager-based jelly and caviar made from Cosmopolitan, that vodka and cranberry juice classic (see box). So just fish out your dessert spoons to grab a mouthful.

Ahmed says: “The visual appeal enhanced by new flavours and textures makes the drinking experience memorable.”

Another ace up his sleeve is the Chewy Cappuccino Cream Wobble. He serves a cappuccino jelly made with premium whisky, kahlua, black coffee and cinnamon-flavoured sugar syrup. This is served with a cream wobble that blends milk and Bailey’s Irish cream.

Ahmed says that molecular mixology is the newest plaything for bartenders across the world and he wants it to be simplified for people to not just taste — but importantly — to try at home.

CLOUD NINE

Glass: Martini

Ingredients
1 whole pear
45ml vodka
A dash of sugar syrup
Marsala wine to poach the fruit

Method

Poach the pear in Marsala wine and pour it all into a mixing glass. Add vodka and fill the glass with ice with a dash of sugar syrup and lemon juice. Shake well and double strain. Pour it into a martini glass. Garnish with pear slices.

SPICY WITCH

Glass: Double Margarita

Ingredients
45ml orange vodka
15ml Cointreau
10ml Dubonnet
80ml orange juice
10ml lemon juice
5 cloves and cardamom each
2 dashes of Tabasco
Chaat masala to rim the glass

Method

Rim the glass with chaat masala. Put all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake for two minutes. Strain the cocktail into the glass. Garnish with a lemon wheel.

COFFEE MUSHROOM CAPPUCCINO

Glass: Cocktail

Ingredients

100ml crème mushroom soup
50ml cappuccino coffee
1tsp sugar
60ml vodka
A cinnamon stick
Caramelised cheese for garnish (cook a piece of cheese in caramelised sugar for a minute)

Method

Cook all the ingredients together in a kettle or a pan for two minutes. Pour into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a cinnamon stick and caramelised cheese. Serve hot.

BLUBBER BEER & COSMO CAVIAR

Ingredients

(For the Blubber beer)
150ml lager beer (at room-temperature)
30ml fresh pineapple juice (double strained using cheese cloth)
5ml clear lemon juice
5ml honey
A pinch of freshly crushed black pepper
4tsp Weikfield pineapple flavour jelly powder

(For the Cosmo caviar)

30ml Absolut citron vodka
5ml clear lemon juice
60ml cranberry juice
3tsp Weikfield strawberry flavour jelly powder
100ml olive oil (chilled)
1 apple
A sprig of mint leaves
A wedge of green lime

Method

(For the Blubber beer)

Mix the Weikfield pineapple flavour jelly mix in a dry bowl to make a smooth powder. Place a deep-dish pan on low flame and add beer, pineapple juice, black pepper, honey and lemon juice. Bring to a slow boil. Add the jelly, mix quickly to the boiling ingredients and stir until the jelly mix has dissolved completely. Remove from flame. Pour the mixture into a plastic cup or any other non-metal container or mould and refrigerate to set.

(For the Cosmo caviar)

Mix the Weikfield strawberry flavour jelly mix in a dry bowl to make a smooth powder. Pour the olive oil in a small bowl and reserve. Place a deep-dish pan on low flame and add the vodka, lemon juice and cranberry juice. Bring to a slow boil. Add the jelly mix quickly and stir until it has dissolved completely. While stirring, quickly transfer the mix drop by drop into the chilled olive oil. The above mix will result into 30-40 drops of little pink pearls resembling caviar. Remove the jellied pearls from the olive oil and gently rinse them in cold water several times until the olive oil has been totally washed off the little pearls.

For the plating

Gently remove the jellied beer mix from the mould on to a plate and place the caviar around it. Sprinkle freshly crushed black pepper over the Blubber beer. Garnish with finely sliced apples, fresh mint leaves and a wedge of green lime. Refrigerate for 15 minutes and serve.