India’s Top Bartender Shows How to Make Amazing Cocktail at Home

Cameraperson: Ather Rather

Video Editor: Prashant Chauhan

Production Assistant: Devika Shah

At this point of time, Yangdup Lama is perhaps the best bartender in India and definitely one of the best in the word. He’s the first Indian to make it to the Drinks International’s annual Bar World 100 list – the ultimate list of world’s most talented bartenders.

Yangdup owns the Sidecar Bar in Delhi and he’s collaborating with The Quint on a very special series on ‘Homemade Cocktails’. He’s kicking it off with his trademark Homemade Apple & Cinnamon Mojito.

What goes into the mix:

• Cinnamon
• Fresh Lime Juice
• Apple Juice
• Light Rum
• Ice

Let’s mix it up:

• Take a straight tall glass.
• The first ingredient is a homemade cinnamon syrup. Making a cinnamon syrup is like making a normal sugar syrup or a ‘chashni’. It's water and the sugar in the ratio 1:1 and almost reduced to half. In the sugar syrup, put a few sticks of cinnamon and just let it infuse for a long time. Pour 20 ml of the cinnamon syrup in the glass.

• Then add 20 ml of freshly squeezed lime juice.
• The next ingredient is 20 ml of simple light rum. The light rum is a classic spirit for making a mojito. But you can deviate, your ingredients could range from a light rum to a gold rum. Don’t use a dark rum for this particular drink. If you don’t like rum, you can also make it with vodka.

• Next fill the glass with lots of ice cubes. Ice helps in slowing down the dilution. So, the trick in cocktail-making is to make sure that the drink is nice and cold. The colder the drink, the better the taste.
• Then top it up with apple juice. There’s no standard measure for the apple juice.

• Finally garnish the cocktail with finely sliced fresh apple and a cinnamon stick.

And your Homemade Apple & Cinnamon Mojito is ready.

(Yangdup Lama runs the Sidecar bar in Delhi. Check out his channel @threebarstools on YouTube)