Drink and be lucky at these bar events in Singapore, which are welcoming Chinese New Year with specially created cocktails.
For the Year of the Rabbit, Smoke & Mirrors have crafted four drinks based around wealth, luck, prosperity, and health, with a fortune cookie to glimpse into your future. Ginger.Lily infuses chilli and plum into a whisky-based drink and serves it with their afternoon tea, while MO Bar remixes four classic cocktails with cognac. At Junior The Pocket Bar, traditional Chinese ingredients inspire their eight festive tipples. Check them out below.
Best bar events for a Chinese New Year cocktail
Ginger.Lily
The Hilton Singapore Orchard bar and lounge is offering three CNY cocktails as part of its afternoon tea (S$78++). Alongside cakes and savoury treats, drink the refreshing Huat CNY Ice Cocktail with plum- and chilli-infused Monkey Shoulder whisky, as well as the Oriental CNY Hot Cocktail, an aromatic sipper with J’taime tea, plum, ginseng, wolfberry, and Monkey Shoulder whisky. The Bountiful Wealth Ice Mocktail is a non-alcoholic option that blends orange juice, passionfruit, ginger ale, bacon syrup, and bacon bits. The cocktails are also available individually from S$14++ to S$22++ each.
21-22 January 2023, 1pm – 3pm, 3.30pm – 5.30pm
333 Orchard Rd, Level 5, Singapore 238867. Book here.
Junior The Pocket Bar
Back for its fourth year, Junior The Pocket Bar’s eight CNY libations are designed to make your luck swell. Blooming Gratitude is a tea ceremony in cocktail form with Martell Noblige, chrysanthemum-infused Lillet Blanc, vermouth, and sherry, while the red envelope-inspired Ang Bao Na Lai offer an ocean of wealth with Monkey 47 Sloe Gin, lychee, grapefruit, and basil. Then Live long and prosper with Longevitea’s combination of The Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve Whisky, red date, wolfberry, and milky oolong tea, which make a good match with the longevity noodles (S$18++), part of the bar’s special Lunar New Year food menu. All cocktails are S$25++ each.
Now till 4 February 2023
6 Ann Siang Hill, Singapore 069787. Walk-in only.
MO Bar
Cognac can play nice with classic cocktails, as MO Bar demonstrates with its four Hennessy-based drinks for Chinese New Year. The Peranakan Cognac Old-Fashioned highlights Hennessy XO with pandan and bitters, and the Asian Side Car is a spicy, bracing drink that blends orange liqueur, lemon, and the richness of Hennessy XO. Other creations include the Bitter Sweet, a concoction of Hennessy VSOP, chocolate, and gula Melaka, as well as the festive Hennessy Milk Punch starring Hennessy VSOP, milk, vanilla, and nutmeg. Cocktails are priced between S$22++ to S$28++ each.
Now till 5 February 2023
5 Raffles Ave., Singapore 039797. Book here.
Smoke & Mirrors
Smoke & Mirrors’s collection of Lunar New Year drinks are titled Wealth, Luck, Prosperous, and Health, with each tipple based around their name. Drink your pineapple juice with Suze gentian liqueur and butter fat-washed monkey 47 gin in Health, while luck piggybacks on the auspicious number 13 in Chivas Extra 13 Rye Cask with oolong tea and bitters. With every order of a cocktail, drinkers get a fortune cookie to crack open and see what is installed for their year ahead. All cocktails are priced at S$28++ each, or try them together in the Fortune Flight (S$48++).
Now till 5 February 2023
1 St. Andrew’s Road, #06-01 National Gallery Singapore, 178957. Book here.
(Hero and feature images credit: Smoke & Mirrors)
