Panji Wisrawan, head mixologist at Bali’s Pinstripe cocktail bar, tells us about the venue’s intriguing new menu
Located at the Viceroy Bali resort in Ubud, the recently reopened Pinstripe bar (located adjacent to Apéritif, one of the island’s most coveted fine-dining restaurants) has launched an exciting new cocktail menu that traces the visits to the island of some surprising historical figures.
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These illustrious visitors included Noel Coward, Charlie Caplin and Miguel “El Chamaco” Covarrubias, who visited during the 1920s and 30s as guests of Ubud’s royal family.
How did you first discover your passion for mixology?
I found my passion for mixology when I had my first job as a bartender in Kuta around 2012. Working in several bars in a buzzing area like Kuta and Legian showed me that the bartender is the soul of the bar and I found it to be my passion to meet and connect with people from across the globe, listen to their stories, and share and create a wonderful and unforgettable experience with the drinks that we made.
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Tell us what inspired the new Clairvoyant cocktail menu at Pinstripe
Pinstripe has this unique bar design that shows the grandeur and exhilarating vibes of New York in the 1920s, with Ubud’s rice fields and jungle as a backdrop. So, for our first new cocktail menu [after the bar’s repositioning], I would like to show the best of both worlds.
How did you research these early pioneers of Bali’s tourism scene and what did you discover during the process?
We are lucky that some of these historical moments and personas were well documented by the royal family of Ubud and some are documented in the form of a book that was collected by the family’s own library. So with the help of these resources, we were lucky to get the information that we needed to create this menu and also made some surprising discoveries along the way, including the visit of some famous people that we didn’t expect had been to Bali, such as Charlie Chaplin, Barbara Hutton, and Noel Coward. This is something that even the native Balinese wouldn’t know if we couldn’t get help from the right sources.
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How is Bali’s cocktail scene evolving?
Bali has a big enthusiasm for its bar industry and mixologists, and we are lucky to have a great source of exotic fruits, herbs and spices that are hardly found anywhere else in the world. That also explains why we have different approaches to cocktail making, because we don’t learn the classic cocktails first but use whatever ingredients we have here with the spirit that are available. What I can say is that it’s an out-of-the-box approach to the cocktail-making process and also different since we have different palates and traditions compared to the rest of the world.
Tell us about the experience the newly rebranded Pinstripe offers travellers to Bali.
I think our newly rebranded Pinstripe bar not only offers travellers a high-end cocktail scene in the heart of Bali but also a dive into history. Pinstripe is an incubation of creativity and a transformative journey for knowledge and senses. Pinstripe captures the essence of its identity, which pulses through its foundation, its opulent walls, its culinary artisans, and every sip and bite it serves. Each drink is a passage through time, a celebration of creativity, and a toast to the enduring spirit of Bali.
What are some of the more unusual ingredients you experiment with at Pinstripe?
We are using this unique wood called Mesoyi that looks exactly like cinnamon but has a unique aroma that reminds us of coconut and toffee. Natively grown in the eastern part of Indonesia, we were lucky enough to get this wood and now use it a lot in our cocktails. We use it in our Signature Old Fashioned and make a flavoured sherry with it for our signature cocktail The Prince.
Tell us about how sustainability has been incorporated into the new cocktail list
We are all about sustainability, and one aspect we are most proud of is the way to breathe a second life into the used ingredients. This includes the coffee incense that we made using leftover coffee, a waste that is massively produced everywhere in the world nowadays. We use it to smoke our The Composer cocktail, not only giving a spectacular theatrical experience but also giving a layer of flavour to the cocktail.
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What’s one cocktail from the new menu we must try?
One from our classic collection is the Holy Negroni; it’s a unique negroni using two of the most important ingredients in Balinese ceremonies: Cananga flower and sandalwood. It’s a white negroni twist that’s aromatic and woody, something that plays with your mind and also has a long-lasting impact. From our Signature lineup, The Clairvoyant is a cocktail inspired by Miguel Covarrubias himself, and is our twist on a Bamboo cocktail – we add a smokey touch by adding mezcal and a unique combination of flavours, including watermelon, peanut butter and bell pepper.
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