It’s still ‘damp January’ – as the kids are calling it these days. Also, the Friday of the last weekend of the month, is officially a dry day in India.
We think the time is right for a primer on zero-proof drinks that don’t feel like juice, or soda, or (gasp!) limbu pani – but are instead layered, complex, sophisticated, and might we say… meant for grown-ups.
A couple of weeks ago, Chennai’s Pandan Club won the award for the best non-alcoholic menu at 30 Best Bars India 2023. It was commended for ‘its outstanding presentation and harmonious blend of flavours, coupled with compelling storytelling’. The awards platform also said that ‘their non-alcoholic beverage selection skillfully complements the rich Peranakan cuisine served in the restaurant’.
We spoke with Manoj Padmanaban, also known as Big Bandha, the co-founder of Pandan Club. “I love my drink,” says Manoj, who is not a fan of the sober beers, gins, and wines available in the market. “Not the zero-proof ones, but my whiskey, my wine. I really enjoy a drink with my food. And I’ve always been exposed to good drinks.”
When Pandan Club started, while waiting for their liquor license, the bartenders started working on the Zero-ABV bar program. “So, the program had virgin this, and virgin that,” says Manoj. “In the first five minutes itself, I got annoyed – not at anyone, but the whole concept. I felt like it was not going in the right direction, so I took a break, and I went into the test kitchen. Inside there were coconut, galangal, kaffir lime, gula malaka. I collected all these ingredients, I put them on the conference table, and I said, ‘Can you all flip your papers? Let’s start from scratch.’ I realised that the belief system around zero ABV is why these drinks are not very impressive wherever we have them. It is that you try to make a drink, and take the good part out of it, and call it a virgin drink.”
Five steps to delicious dry drinks
1. Zero ABV starts with some base. It can be a fruit or a vegetable. You like apples, you’re a citrus person? I could be a watermelon person. Start on a base with whatever someone likes. It could be coconut water, it can be something clean.
2. Then we can add a herbal element: holy basil, rosemary, thyme. What this does is it adds a little touch that elevates the base element.
3. The most important angle: when I call bartenders for interviews and ask them to make a drink, none of them touch seeds. I’m talking about coriander seeds, sabja seeds. We also have pepper, spices like fenugreek, we have fennel. These add a little sharp punch to the drink.
4. After you put these together (base, herbs, spices, and seeds): maybe muddle or shake them a little bit, you have a reasonably well-crafted drink already. Now we can add a physical element, some texture – open a can of soda, throw in a few dashes of non-alcoholic bitters, for example.
5. And the major point – when you want to really enjoy a craft drink which feels like the good stuff is not out, I feel the glassware is extremely important. You have to invest in a little bit of glassware at home. The whiskey-looking drink has to go in a whiskey glass. If you’re making a drink out of a nice grape, then put it in a wine glass. The flavour demands a certain touch and feel. I really believe in this, so we buy glassware from the same places where the top bars in the country get theirs.
Check out Pandan Club and Big Bandha on Instagram.