Kong’s The Chinnery (
mandarinoriental.com) was the pioneering bar in promoting single malt whisky in Hong Kong around a quarter of a century ago. Others have overtaken it, but with its old-fashioned gentleman’s club atmosphere and iconic “whisky wall”, The Chinnery remains one of the pleasantest places in town for a quiet dram. “Rare bottles we serve include Macallan 30 Sherry Oak, which is the most premium whisky in The Chinnery, priced at HK$1,900 [US$245] per shot,” says assistant bar manager Dominic Chu. “We also have a collection of Macallan Fine Oak and Sherry Oak, and as Japanese whisky became popular, in 2014 we added Japanese whiskies to the list. In 2015 we added Kavalan, and we also offer regular whisky dinners.”
SPIRIT SPECIALISTS Butler Bar (5th
floor, Mody House, 30 Mody Road,
Tsimshatsui) and Executive Bar (executivebar-com-hk.
blogspot.hk) are discreetly hidden away on the upper storeys of commercial buildings, and have no street level signage – rather like many of the Tokyo bars on which they are modelled. Both are owned and run by dedicated and fastidious Japanese bartenders who take their whisky and their ice very seriously. The city’s largest whisky selection however is to be found at a relatively new bar, Safe Bubbles & Malt (
facebook.com/safebubblesandmalt), which has a list of more than 1,000 whiskies, mostly from Scotland and Japan, and in many cases rare old bottles which are generally no longer commercially available. “People come here to enjoy whisky but also to learn,” says whisky consultant Eric Huang, who curates the collection. “Maybe you like a particular whisky but you haven’t tried it from the 1960s or 70s, or even earlier.” Singapore has two particularly noteworthy whisky
bars – The Auld Alliance (
theauldalliance.sg) and La Maison du Whisky (
whisky.sg). La Maison du Whisky is a branch of the famous whisky emporium in Paris; it’s a retailer during the day but in the evening becomes a popular bar. The Auld Alliance is also French managed, and
recently moved into new premises at the Rendezvous Hotel, allowing it to expand what was already one of Asia’s largest whisky collections. “We now have around 1,500 whiskies in the bar,” says director Emmanuel Dron. “The library room is much bigger, and the whole bar is more open than before.” There are bars dedicated to other hard liquors – gin,
tequila, cognac and rum for example – but no other spirit offers quite the same breadth of choice. In the words of Hong Kong-based wine and spirits educator Ron Taylor: “You can have 400 whiskies in a bar. You can’t do that with vodka – or it would be pretty boring if you did. Whisky has got cachet. There’s a lot of history behind it, but primarily I think single malt whiskies, along with top-end rums, are the most complex spirits out there.” We’ll drink to that.
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