A cocktail champion鈥檚 love for tiki
Print Edition
IN the culinary world, a cocktail can reflect the bartender’s personality.
Tropical is the best word to describe the award-winning celebrity bartender Daniele Dalla Pola from Italy, who has his own ways when it comes to mixing drinks with fresh fruit and rum.
Pola was the champion of 42 Below Cocktail World Cup 2011 and owns the Nu Bar Lounge in Bologna, Italy for 15 years now. Pola took over the bar of Calypso restaurant, Jing An Shangri-La recently and turned it into a tropical, tiki-style stage decorated with vast amounts of fresh fruits as well as the tiki ornamentations he brought with him on his trips.
A tiki master who loves to play with fire when mixing cocktails, Pola’s cocktails are sweet and refreshing.
“When working with the fruits, the most important thing is to find the balance — that they are not overly sweet or overly sour,” Pola said.
Cocktails are like food, said Pola. His tiki cocktails are inspired by the tropical culture of Hawaii. He’s the kind of person who would put pineapples in his kitchen for decoration.
Tiki cocktails started in the 1930s when Donn Beach, the founding father of tiki restaurants and bars, started making drinks from rum, flavored syrups and juices, then paring them with foods like Cantonese, Hawaiian and Polynesian cuisines, explained Pola.
The tropical inspired tiki cocktails are sweet and light without too much alcohol, and they are very dessert-like. About 90 percent of the tiki cocktails are based on rum, with a few exceptions that use tequila, gin or whisky.
“When you try this kind of food, like Polynesian food, it’s a good combination with the tiki drinks, like the Chinese food with tiki drinks is a boom,” said Pola.
His favorite spirit to work with is Bacardi 8 rum. Pola also uses various types of homemade purees in his cocktails, like the almond and orange blossom water puree that’s sweet and still keeps some of the nutty texture.
Mai Tai is a rum based tiki cocktail that was very popular in the 1950s and 60s. It is made with rum, lime juice, Curaçao liqueur and syrup. The exotic tiki drinks also include zombie, rum runner and daiquiri.
Pina Colada is perhaps among the most ordered tiki cocktails in the world. The pineapple and coconut flavored drink is a summer must-have and perfect companion to the tacos and quesadillas.
Pola’s version, named “sexy colada,” is his interpretation of the all-time classic. He added ginger syrup and angostura bitters in the sweet cocktail for a bit of contrasting taste, as layered flavor is also a crucial element in making tiki cocktails. The cocktail is served in a hollow pineapple shell with cinnamon sticks on top.
Kona downhill is a less sweet cocktail created by Pola, which is made with Kona coffee liqueur, fresh juices and the homemade Chinese five spice honey syrup, adding a distinct peppery taste to the strong coffee flavors.
“Tiki for me is a lifestyle. I love tiki, I love Hawaii, I love my job, it’s a good way to live,” said Pola.
On July 19, two star female bartenders, Beckaly Franks from The Pontiac bar in Hong Kong and Micaela Piccolo from the B-28 bar in Seoul, will also be joining Macarena Rotger at the 1515 West Chophouse & Bar to present a ladies’ night.
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