The Cocktail Lab is a mini-series presenting the world of extraordinary, weird cocktails and invites you to try them out yourself. As the name says, one of the needed equipment for these recipes is a shaker and a professional lab. Just kidding. Enjoy.

One of my favourite bars in Berlin is Truffle Pig, a speak-easy cocktail bar in Kreuzberg. You enter by pressing the fire alarm and walk through a mirror, where the bar awaits you with dimmer light coming from light bulbs hanging off the ceiling and a few seats spread around the small space. The bar counter made out of stone looks enormous in the small room. Behind, you see two smiling Italians swirling cocktails. I had the chance to grasp a glimpse of Vito, one of the barmen at Truffle Pig. We immediately got along, fangirling about the world of “weird” cocktails. I love the concept of the bar because of its buzzing creativity and warmth while staying simple without any “schnickschnack” (engl. nonsense), as we Germans would say. Each cocktail comes with a story and an individual poster showing the inspiration behind the recipe.

POPCORN ORANGE

It is a cocktail inspired by two great passions of Vito. Cinema and Sicily. Combining the American movie flavours with the smell of Sicilian air is hard to combine, yet the result is tremendous. Popcorn meets orange blossom that flirts with your nose and drops you right between a powerful smell of orange fields. The caramel sweetness of the popcorn gets rounded up with the flavour of American bourbon, which is also inspired by the movie theme. The cocktail becomes rich in depth with a floral scent and a sweet caramelised aftertaste. You could call it an outdoor cinema in Sicilian orange fields. It's a bold flavour combination in my eyes.

Verjus

Sour Passoinfruit

Popcorn

Amaretto Adriatico Roasted

Dry Sherry

Fernet

MUSTARD FIG ELDERFLOWER ou Luis FIGO

Weirdly enough, this cocktail was inspired by the lovely Orange Popcorn Cocktail. One day, Vito was rushing to the supermarket pre-service, and when looking for the bag of popcorn, he got lost in the mustard aisle. Since he was already looking for a fig cocktail idea, he lightened up when holding a fig mustard in his hands. The same night, he sold his first glass of the famous Luís Figo. Why the name? Besides mustard and fig leaf syrup, the cocktail comes with a Manzanillo Sherry, a Portuguese spirit. What better name is there to take than Luís Figo, the Portuguese football player? And it couldn’t match better associating it with fig.

The cocktail itself is somehow extraordinary. The lemon and mustard combination gives it a light acidity. The Fig leaves give it a more nutty taste. The vegan egg white foam perfectly rounds the cocktail up. This whole experience in a glass made me smirk, thinking about the absurd creations chefs and barmen come up with nowadays and how they make us look at ingredients with a completely different attitude.

30ml Vodka

30ml Manzanilla Sherry

24ml Lemon Juice

10ml Fig Leaf Syrup

1 bar spoon Fig Mustard

10ml Vegan Eggwhite

2,5ml Elderflower Cordial

WHITE ASPARAGUS WITH HAZELNUT

This cocktail was inspired by an evening date with Vito and his girlfriend. They went to a fancy restaurant on a September evening, where he ordered fresh Asparagus. It was served with a soft sauce covered by roasted hazelnuts. He loved the dish and its flavour combination and wanted to recreate his experience but in a glass. In no time, he bought fresh white asparagus, and the cocktail was put on the menu the next day. He has infused the asparagus in vodka to make a great white asparagus vodka. He added hazelnut liqueur and hazelnut eau-de-vie to get the nuttiness, and he finished it with vegan egg foam to capture the creaminess of the dish. The cocktail didn't need a second trial and left people in awe.

50ml White Asparagus Wodka

24ml fresh Lemon

10ml Hazelnut Liqueur

10ml Hazelnut Eau De Vie

10ml Simple Syrup (1:1)

10ml Vegan Eggwhite

The Cocktail Lab - Part 2

The Cocktail Lab - Part 1