Sharm Cocktail Festival
GOA MASALA (INDIA)
50 ml vanilla infused vodka ‘1 bottle vodka with 2 vanilla sticks for a period of at least 24 hours)
120 ml mix masala (500 ml mango puree + 400 ml passion fruit juice + 100 ml fresh lime juice+ 4 grms masala powder
JACK LEGACY (USA)
60 popcorn infused jack Daniels (mix 100grs caramelized popcorn with 1 bottle jack Daniels)
80 ml peach mix Peach Mix (1 pot peach jam + 5 fresh peach + 1 pot water)
GEISHA MARGARITA
(JAPAN / MEXICO)
50ml Tequila infused Japanese tea
Cherry Blossom (3 tea bags for one bottle of tequila for a period of at least 24 hours)
90ml fresh grapefruit juice
30ml green apple syrup syrup
SPICY CEBU (PHILIPPINES)
No Alcohol
250ml mango juice
20ml lime juice
20ml spicy syrup
(1 Tai chili infused 24h in 1 liter sugar syrup)
KAWAI YLANG
60 ml vanilla infused vodka
100 grms water melon
10 ml YlangYlang essential oil infused honey
(3 drops ylangylang essential oil 100% organic & edible for 1kg honey)
Presented by Matthias Giroud – Executive Bar Manager Buddha Bar
From July 17th to the 20th, Little Buddha hosted a cocktail festival, presided over by executive bar manager, Matthias Giroud.
He actually arrivced a week earlier to get a feel for Sharm and to train the staff here in some new techniques and recipes.
His inspiration, he says is from all the locations he has visited, during the course of his work, as Buddha is an international brand, with clubs in places as diverse as Japan, the Phillipines, India Mexico and America. He did an interesting and original project with Michelin starred chef, Alain Ducasse called cocktail painting, where he blended his love of art with the process of producing new and interesting concepts for cocktails.
All of his recipes are inspired by art, nature and local cuisine.
The cocktails usually have specially custom produced ingredients, using infused honey, perfume oils and homemade peach marmalade, to name but a few.
It doesn’t stop there. As part of his palette, Matthias uses such materials as copper wire, rose petals, special straws and candied rocks.
Watching him at work with all these materials was truly fascinating, with his attention to detail, design and execution. He is planning to release a new speciality cocktail for Sharm, so go down to Buddha to check it out.
At the time of writing, it’s still a big secret.
Matthias has been an executive bar manager for 9 years but started in the business 20 years ago, at the tender age of 16. The first location he worked for Little Buddha was in Paris. He worked his way up and can now claim responsibility for opening 95% of their branches around the world. He has, however, visited all of them.
Each location is tailored to the country in and it’s guests. He refers to himself as a “mixologist” since his job involves
so much more than just making and presenting cocktails. For example, a guest can come to the bar not knowing what they want. Rather than just recommend something from the list, a mixologist will quiz the customer on what flavours they like and any preferences in ingredients and work out something unique, according to their taste.
The difference between a mixologist and a barman is the same as the difference between a chef and a cook.
Here are some of of Matthias’s recipes. You might want to try them at home. These are all shaken cocktails but they can be stirred, or made in a blender using just a little ice (you don’t want to water them down).
It’s actually not hard to find a shaker, if you really want to. There are plenty of kitchen and bar suppliers who’ll sell you one in Sharm. Just look around or search on the internet, if you’re that keen. Use your imagination and substitute ingredients where necessary, or take the easy option-go to Little Buddha and leave the work to the professionals.
Tags:Festival, sharm
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