Who are you? 

Co-founder of Third Eye Distillery, Goa – home to Stranger & Sons gin

Where do you work and what do you do?

Who doesn’t like working from a place close to a beach & setting up a distillery surrounded by spice farms? We set up our distillery in Goa & today most of my work involves travelling to new cities to explore new markets for our gin. 

What’s the best thing about your job? 

I love checking out new bars in every city I visit, there is just so much to learn from the people behind it, each of them has a different story to share right from the local ingredients to their culture & history - all of this just over couple of cocktails. 

You can teleport to any bar in the world, where are you going? 

This is a tough one, there are a lot of bars that I have special memories in like Bramble in Edinburg, Happiness Forgets in London, Manhattan Bar – Singapore, Amor y Amargo in NYC, Bar Ben Fiddich in Tokyo to name a few , having said that something that has stood out for me is the Gibson – not only does our gin really stand out in this but apart from the usual pickled onion, I have tried some really interesting garnishes along with this cocktail like a quail egg & wasabi leaf (at Gibson, Singapore) or the truffle smoked & aged onion (at Gibson, London).

You’re at the bar ordering a drink – who in the drinks biz do you want rocking up next to you? 

Probably someone like Ada Coleman comes to my mind. She was the first female head bartender at the Savoy in London and creator of the Hanky Panky (a cocktail I have started to enjoy of late). I would love to hear her stories about how it was for women to work behind the bar & how she went on to become the head bartender of the American Bar in the early 1900s. 

What is your desert island bottle?

Considering I will always have a bottle of Stranger & Sons gin on me, I’ll take a bottle of mezcal along. 

What is your hangover cure? 

Carbs, fat & maybe some prosecco!

Type

Booze hounds