EVERY BARTENDER HAS a favourite moment in the evening. Mine is watching a guest finish the whole drink within a minute of the first sip, because it's that good. That's what we're after every time a new drink goes on the menu at Painkiller.
Surprise is a big part of how we work, but surprise only works on a solid foundation. Before you can curd-wash a tequila or put pickle brine in a Negroni, you need to understand what the spirit wants: its weight, its sweetness, how it behaves cold, how it opens up with a little dilution. The classics teach you that. The experiments are what you earn once you've learned it.
Our menu looks like a medicine cabinet. I came up with the name Painkiller, and we've enjoyed the joke ever since. The drinks behind the names are built the serious way: balanced, properly cold and served on ice that does its job. We'd much rather you enjoyed a drink than sat through a speech about it.
WHAT WINTER DOES TO A DRINK
In Delhi, the festive season is also when the city finally cools down, and palates follow. Drinks get a little richer and rounder, and warmth feels welcome again. Cinnamon and clove are what everyone reaches for in winter, but this season I'd rather lean on tea than spice: a little tea, a few berries, that sort of thing. We've just added a drink to the menu with exactly that kind of winter warmth.
TAKING THE BAR HOME
This season we're trying something new. Through The Bartenders, Slurrp's new initiative pairing cocktail bars with home hosts, Painkiller is going to people's parties: our team, our prep and a menu built around the host's evening. What changes when we swap our bar for your living room? Mostly my uniform.
For hosts, the deal is simple. They get to be guests at their own party, and their guests get the drinks they'd otherwise come to Hauz Khas for.
Below are the three drinks I'm most excited about this season. I've written them for home bars: no lab equipment, no hard-to-find tinctures. Where a step needs patience, I've said so.
1. SEDATIVE: THE FESTIVE OPENER
If you want a taste of that tea-and-berries mood at home, start here. At the bar, the Sedative brings together whisky, peanut butter, smoky lapsang tea, honey, grapefruit and blackberry. It's rich enough for a cold evening and bright enough to open one. This home version skips our bar prep but keeps the idea: the peanut butter goes into the whisky itself.
● You'll need: 45 ml peanut-butter-washed whisky (see Make ahead), 20 ml cold lapsang souchong tea, 20 ml honey syrup (equal parts honey and warm water), 15 ml fresh grapefruit juice, 10 ml fresh lime juice, 3 blackberries (frozen are fine), a small pinch of salt
● Method: Muddle the blackberries in a cocktail shaker. Add everything else, fill with ice and shake hard for 10–12 seconds. Double-strain into a rocks glass over one large ice cube.
● Glass, ice and garnish: Rocks glass, one large cube, a blackberry or a twist of grapefruit peel
● Make ahead: This is the step that needs patience. Warm 2 tablespoons of smooth peanut butter until runny, stir it into 250 ml whisky, shake well and leave at room temperature for 2 hours. Freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight; the fat sets on top. Strain through a coffee filter or muslin. The washed whisky keeps for a week. Brew the tea (1 tsp leaves in 100 ml hot water for 5 minutes) and make the honey syrup the day before; squeeze the juice on the day.
2. FEVER FIZZ: THE ONE TO BATCH FOR A CROWD
The Fever Fizz is our nod to rum and cola, the drink plenty of your guests will ask for anyway, with a touch of coconut to surprise them. It's also the easiest drink here to scale: infuse the rum a day ahead, add lime on the day and top up with cola as guests arrive.
● You'll need: For one drink: 50 ml coconut-infused rum, 10 ml fresh lime juice, about 120 ml chilled cola. For a batch of 10: 500 ml coconut-infused rum, 100 ml fresh lime juice, 1.2 litres chilled cola
● Method: To infuse the rum, toast 100 g desiccated coconut in a dry pan until golden, let it cool, add it to a 750 ml bottle of rum and leave for 24 hours. Strain through muslin or a coffee filter. For a crowd, mix the rum and lime in a jug or bottle and keep it in the fridge. Pour 60 ml of the mix into each glass over ice and top with cola.
● Glass, ice and garnish: Tall glass filled with ice, a lime wedge
● Make ahead: Infuse the rum up to two days ahead. Squeeze the lime and mix the batch on the day, and add the cola only as you pour, so it stays fizzy.
3. NON-ALCOHOLIC PIÑA COLADA: THE ZERO-PROOF ONE
A good host pours something just as considered for the guests who aren't drinking. If there's one zero-proof drink I'd want people to make at home, it's a non-alcoholic piña colada. It's a close cousin of our Tropic Disorder (white rum, fresh pineapple, coconut ice cream), minus the rum. Coconut water keeps it light and mint, which almost every household has, keeps it fresh. You get flavour and hydration too, and it's very easy to make.
● You'll need: 90 ml tender coconut water, 60 ml pineapple juice (fresh if you can), 30 ml coconut milk, 6–8 mint leaves
● Method: Add everything to a shaker with ice and shake hard for 15 seconds, which whips the coconut milk into a light foam. Strain into a tall glass over fresh ice.
● Glass, ice and garnish: Tall glass, cubed or crushed ice, a mint sprig and a pineapple wedge
● Make ahead: Mix the coconut water, pineapple juice and coconut milk in a jug up to 4 hours ahead and refrigerate. Shake each serve with mint and ice just before pouring.
BEFORE YOU START MIXING
● Buy more ice than you think you need. Bigger, denser cubes really do melt more slowly, so your drink stays the way it was made.
● Chill your glasses. Twenty minutes in the freezer keeps every drink colder for longer.
● Squeeze citrus on the day. Lime juice loses its brightness within hours, so squeeze it fresh and strain out the pulp.
● Batch the stirred drinks. Spirit-forward drinks like the Negroni can be mixed ahead, bottled and kept in the fridge; add a splash of water to stand in for the dilution stirring would give them. Shaken, citrus-led drinks are best made to order.
● Taste before you pour. A drink is only balanced once you've tasted it, so adjust the sweet and sour before it reaches a guest.
Make these at home and tell us how they turned out. Or let us make them for you, while you get on with being a host.
This article is intended only for readers aged 25 and above. Please drink responsibly and exercise moderation. Never drink and drive.