The Icemen Cometh

As Shanghai’s sippers and tippers gain a greater appreciation for more refined spirits, more and more bartenders are jumping behind the pine to provide them with craft cocktails. For some of Shanghai’s most exclusive cocktail bars, this has meant the arrival of Japanese barmen, bringing skills hewn in Tokyo, the home of cocktail culture. And the thing that they and their customers are beginning to demand more and more of isn’t just exotic spirits, it is ice.

If not the birthplace, Tokyo is where the cocktail revolution flourished and found its feet. Here, the same obsession with precision and refinement revered in traditional Japanese tea ceremonies was applied to cocktails. Tokyo’s Ginza bar scene rose to world renown, earning the city the title of  ‘Cocktail Capital of the World’. Barkeeps became more than just waitstaff, they became mixologists.

Here in Shanghai, when Guillermo ‘Willy’ Trullas Moreno of el Willy fame wanted to open a Ginza-style bar, no detail was left to chance. He traveled to Tokyo in order to recruit the best of the best. Battle-tested Munenori Harada, known as Mune-san, returned with him.

El Coctel was built with Mune-san’s requests in mind. Needing at least two and a half minutes to make a single cocktail, seating at the bar is limited to 90 patrons to give him ample time for his liquid creations. His self-described ‘classic style’ focuses on simplicity, with only a few ingredients each of the highest quality.

While Mune-san has been able to find the ingredients to supply his bar with bitters, infused vodkas and homemade syrups, well-made ice still remains a difficult ingredient to source. The frozen substance is more than just a means to keep your drink chilled; for mixologists and Shanghai’s growing class of cocktail connoisseurs, it’s an integral part of the libation experience. Without the time to carve and freeze his own ice, Mune-san has been forced to rely on the one suppler in town with ice up to standard – XiaoDe Pure Ice.

Unlike regular ice cubes you’ll find in your drink at a restaurant, ‘pure ice’ is made from de-ionized water void of impurities. The odourless, hard and transparent ice allows the flavours in a cocktail to be enjoyed unblemished. The difference sounds insignificant, but the refined palates of mixologists and their patrons relish the distinction.

Smaller bars like Kyo-san’s Papaya also use pure ice from XiaoDe, but rely on homemade ice as well. After 15 years of experience in Japan and induction into the Nippon Bartenders Association, Kyo-san’s skills at making ice are well-established. Every week, eight students filter through the bar to learn mixology from him, including his secret ice-making process. Kyo-san refuses to discuss these methods openly, saying, “I don’t tell others. There are too many knock-offs in China.”

The pure ice from XiaoDe is hard and melts slowly, allowing drinks to keep their strength for longer. Even this purchased ice becomes implausibly versatile in Kyo-san’s adept hands. His shaking techniques produce margaritas with delicate flakes floating on the surface that need to be imbibed within seven minutes or three sips, or else they dilute the cocktail. It is important that “ice doesn’t have any air”, Kyo explains, as “cloudy ice ruins the aesthetics of the drink as a whole”.

Cross Yu from CVRVE is a leader among young Chinese mixologists focused on building knowledge of the bartender’s craft in China. Back in 2007, his attention to detail secured a victory at his first-ever mixology competition where judges were wowed by a concoction mixing chocolate and Sichuan pepper. Yu is a perfectionist, and it is his drive for excellence that not only helped him win competitions, but also drove him to purchase a US$1,000 Santos #53 Ice Crusher for the bar. He says that using crushed pure ice from XiaoDe ice is crucial for drinks like mojitos, but that its significance is lost on some patrons in the bar. “People will take one drink and let it sit for 20 minutes until the mojito looks like Chinese green tea,” Yu laments.

Still not thawed to the importance of ice? Stop by one of the aforementioned bars and tell one of the mix-masters to make you an ice-laden beverage. Or opt for a different take on the frozen treat at Alchemist with its Pimm’s Spider. The dish of cucumber and absinthe ice cream comes with a beaker full of Liefmanns Fruitesse beer. To make the alcoholic ice cream, Alchemist’s bar uses dry ice to freeze the liquor faster, resulting in a seriously creamy concoction and proving that the applications and aesthetics of ice in bars is endless. So, on your next under-the-influence night, if you want to get the most out of your beverages, make sure you savour the ice (well, not longer than seven minutes).