Sidecar's Yangdup Lama on shaking up India's bar scene and the secret to a great cocktail
Renowned Indian mixologist Yangdup Lama, 50, recalls his first bartending experience. He was chatting with guests and mixing drinks as part of his hotel management course, at the Hyatt Regency in Delhi in 1995, and the experience marked the start of a lifelong love affair.
Deciding to go all in with his new passion, Lama quit a steady bar job in 2000 to start his own freelance bartending company providing mobile barkeep services for weddings and events.
"Bartending is beyond just mixing drinks or jugglery with shakers," Lama says. "It's about customising a drink to suit the tastes of a customer, being a good conversationalist, engaging customers and being creative with your drinks. Very often the bartender becomes a confidante, the one who knows your secrets."
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India's cocktail scene was small when he started out, and while it remains a niche nightlife scene, "in recent times, with millennials and others who are well-travelled, the cocktail culture is picking up and customers are becoming more experimental and there's a huge demand for cocktails and good bars".
In 2020, Lama was the first Indian to be named in Drinks International's Bar World 100 list of most influential people. He has been a consultant to major liquor brands from Bacardi and Diageo to Pernod Ricard, and also worked with luxury hotel chains like Taj Hotels, Oberoi and ITC.
Lama owns two bars in Delhi. One of them, Sidecar, started in 2018, broke into the list of world's top 50 bars in 2021 and steadily rose from 47 to 26 this year.
The other, Cocktails and Dreams Speakeasy, is the first bar opened by a bartender in India and is located in Gurugram, a north Indian city also known by its old name of Gurgaon.
"Cocktails and Dreams Speakeasy was established in Gurgaon in December 2012 and is the first bartenders' bar in the country, purely because no bartender could ever think of setting up his/her own bar until I did it 10 years ago," Lama says.
"The location is a little off the hustle and bustle of Gurgaon simply because I and my partner created the place with our own savings, and hence could not afford to be in a high street location with heavy footfall."
Lama also trains a new generation of aspirants at a bartending school in Delhi that he established in 2003, which offers courses in bartending and bar management.
He says bartenders also expand their knowledge in "bar takeovers", when talented professionals from top establishments around the world come and take over bars like Lama's Sidecar for a short period to showcase their skills and exchange tips.
Sidecar, which Lama co-runs with Minakshi Singh, is currently 26th on the list of the World's 50 Best Bars 2022, and 14th on the list of Asia's 50 Best Bars 2022.
The establishment is spread over two floors - the first floor houses a cafe and library, and the second has a main, high energy bar with a cabinet full of spirits, a peppy playlist and hosts events like pub quizzes.
Lama has taken inspiration from his travels and the kitchen, and used a myriad of ingredients in his cocktails such as Himalayan Sichuan pepper and edible camphor.
Sidecar draws from classical literary greats and serves innovative cocktails dedicated to writers such as Jane Austen, F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and others.
The bar also pays tribute to India's unique sights, such as "Dear Delhi", a set of 10 cocktails that pays homage to the flavours, culture, history and heritage of the capital city.
A good bar is one that has to match drinks to a drinker's taste profiles and offer a variety of spirits, says Lama. "The drinks have to be beautifully presented and have to be priced reasonably."
Every little detail - from the quality of ice to the type of glassware - could make a difference to the cocktail. "Glassware defines the look of the drink. It's the sense of sight that first captures the essence of a cocktail and the right glassware does just that," Lama says.
"However, the emphasis is on freshness and home-made tinctures, grogs, shrubs and bitters. The idea is to run the cocktail programme with a zero-wastage philosophy and we have to a large extent been quite successful in doing so," he says.
"I use a lot of ingredients from Indian kitchens as well as native techniques like fermentation. I want to bring in the best of our history, heritage and culture to the fore when making a drink."
His drink of choice in a bar is a Manhattan, which he uses to assess if he should order a second drink. On what his favourite drink is, he says: "That's like asking a parent to choose his favourite child."
Lama dreams that one day, cocktail bars will be as popular as chef-driven establishments, and that Indians can make a name internationally as bartenders.
"What Indian chefs have done in the Indian food scene globally is also possible with bars."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
