This season only calls for more alcohol with all the socializing we’re about to do – if we’re not flooded with all that already. The way to go through all that is to serve and be served with cocktails. They are delicious and it is endless what flavors one can come up with. In the Philippines today, the cocktail scene is thriving and the flavors along with it. In fact, I once went into a cocktail bar on an island in the Philippines serving a menu of 41 cocktails!
Although, serving a flavorful alcoholic drink may be tough with all the mouths to fill hence, bottled cocktails may be for you. If you’ve found yourself sitting at a bar a lot during a busy night, you’ll notice how bartenders already premixed best-selling cocktails in large quantities, and store them in glass containers so that when it is time to roll, they just pour it over ice, stir, and garnish–skipping the toil of measuring.
This method is widely applied mainly because batching cocktails spell consistency in taste. It’s the same concept with bottled cocktails, only that bottled cocktails have the intention of a much longer shelf-life and quite ideal for people who host gatherings but do not have the skills of a bartender or the library of a bar. Craft bottled cocktails like 35cl Cocktail Co., which is a craft bottled cocktail company based in the Philippines leads the way into creating a convenient and flavorful experience with every bottle.
But unlike the usual mass-produced bottled cocktails like margaritas and mojitos sold by much bigger alcohol brands, 35cl Cocktail Co. bi-annually produces three bottled cocktails of their own interpretation of the classics, or an introduction to new flavors. Purposefully produced in small batches with only 120 bottles per cocktail and made with an intended taste profile, the brand is committed to expanding the boundaries of flavors, never settling to what just works.
In time for its second release, Niko Tiutan and his partner Alex Atienza of 35cl Cocktail Co. shared with us how a simple negroni started their interest in exploring cocktails; how a college thesis paved the way for them to pursue a beverage business together and their focus in experimenting with methods and ingredients.
The Ingredients
Building the cocktails is the work of Niko. Niko has been in the food and beverage industry mainly working as a barista for about 3.5 years with his only full-time employment before building 35cl Cocktail Co. being at Toyo Eatery and its next-door bakery, Panaderya Toyo. His co-founder Alex, who is leading the branding and marketing, was a freelance designer for different brands before working for a start-up company abroad. Niko is in the country working on the company’s day-to-day, while Alex, on the other hand, is finishing her graduate studies in New York while still working with the brand’s marketing.
Back in college, the two did their thesis together–selling cold brew coffee using beans sourced from Kalsada Coffee. Named Colloquial Coffee, it was their first venture into a brand together. The two confess to having wanted to pursue coffee originally and then open up a cafe. Niko shares that his main and still current interest is still with coffee and that the idea to pursue something in the alcohol industry came only later on during his employment at Toyo.
They were both interested in alcohol as consumers and were fascinated by craft cocktails. They always wanted to be involved in the food and beverage industry but the plan was not specifically with alcohol.
“Alex and I started out as beverage enthusiasts (drinkers of coffee and cocktails) before we decided to venture into our own business. [35cl Cocktail Co.] serves both as our brainchild and culmination of what we’ve learned so far,” says Niko.
It is not unusual for people to be fans of both coffee and cocktails. In the country, we have a number of establishments serving both and a plethora of baristas who have ended up being great bartenders. Yet their distinct preparation principles set these almost inseparable beverages on polar ends.
Niko explains that coffee focuses more on preserving and enhancing the flavors of the beans itself while cocktail creation for him presented a more expressive and creative side of beverage preparation. He says that pursuing cocktails gave them more freedom to work with the flavors. 35cl Cocktail Co., became their medium to experiment.
Why Bottle?
For Niko, pursuing bottled cocktails stemmed from the interest of enjoying cocktails at home and sharing a drink with friends or giving it as gifts. Alex and Niko both enjoy consuming cocktails in terms of enjoying a beverage’s flavors but have a low tolerance for alcohol, hence tasting only one or two drinks whenever they find themselves in a cocktail bar. Having bottled cocktails meant that you could control your own serving size contrary to cocktail bars’, making it possible for you to enjoy and compare the flavors side by side, and at your own pace.
Bottling the cocktails also allowed them to explore alternative ways to extract flavor and let it develop over time as ingredients interact with each other.
“The cocktail that really got me into bartending and the drink culture was a Negroni. It’s such an iconic drink, with the hue of red that stands out from the rest of the classics,” recounts Niko.
It was easy to bottle but it was not widely available as the types of cocktails that are currently bottled are limited and mostly spirit-forward with ingredients with more shelf-life.
“Our idea was to bring in a whole new flavor spectrum to bottled cocktails, which we’re constantly striving to achieve today.”
Niko Tiutan
Nevertheless, the team of two acknowledge that bottling is a challenge and it has its own limitations. “A bottled cocktail only has the product to speak for itself [as compared to having a figure like a bartender] and you cannot get an entirely different drink from the same bottle as compared to having a bottle of gin that can make multiple cocktails,” shares Niko. “What it does have, however, is an assurance that the drink was made the way it was intended. Furthermore, it’s easier to create a consistent product with a bottled cocktail as the pressure from service isn’t there while making the drink.”
The Presentation
When speaking about the branding, the notable Braille logo is a treat for the curious. It is an ode to the Japanese alcohol companies and their thoughtfulness towards their consumers. He explains that Japanese beer brewers came together and adapted to Braile characters to help visually impaired consumers inform them of the beverage and avoid it if they must. 35cl Cocktail Co. wanted to relate this same care and thoughtfulness to its costumers, hence the logo: the Braille characters for 35, indicating the measurement of their bottles.
The thought behind the branding is also a fusion of several inspirations from the brands that they consume and appreciated as beverage enthusiasts. When you visit the website of 35cl Cocktail Co and its social media accounts, the drinks are presented in a way similar to how coffee beans are labeled, saying much about their coffee background. They included the tasting notes and were transparent with the ingredients. Niko and Alex decided it was the route to take because they wanted the consumers to understand what was in their drink and appreciate it as much as they do without overcomplicating.
“We wanted the brand to be simple yet technical, thoughtful yet straightforward. We kept this in mind when we were trying to refine the concept and applied it to how we came up with the name and our logo.”
Niko Tiutan
The Pursuit of Flavor
As for the cocktail collections, every release features interpretations of the three major flavor profiles: built or spirit-forward, sour, and lastly, experimental. For the not so spirit-savvy, think negroni or old-fashioned, whiskey sour or Amaretto sour, and Hemingway Daquiri or Last Word respectively.
35cl Cocktail Co. does not only bottle the classic but they experiment with building an intended taste profile that falls into these three categories. Rather than sticking to how a cocktail should taste, Niko shares that he starts with a theme for the collection, or a general idea of the cocktail and find a taste or ingredient he wants to highlight and build from there. The tricky parts, he shares, is balancing it all so that no flavor from one ingredient overpowers another. “We don’t have a specific flow on how the drinks would be created, but they are stemmed from three criteria: highlighting a certain ingredient, creating a specific flavor, or doing a rift from a classic.” The result is a fresh new take on the classics with a lot of appreciation for enhanced flavors of botanicals and other ingredients.
In time for the holidays, 35cl Cocktail Co.’s second collection features a take on Filipino comfort flavors served during this season.
“CE004 (Chocolate) was created as the sour drink for this collection. It was inspired by the chocolate and orange pairing with Vodkas as its base.” Sours are mostly catering to the refreshing spectrum of cocktails thus, this flavor has that same approachable character a great mix of mildness yet still caters to the warmth you need during the cold weather.
Perhaps the most notable cocktail for the holidays is the Eggnog, so it was just apt for 35cl Cocktail Co. to reinterpret the classic through their experimental drink, CE005 (Eggnog). Compared to the classic that is creamier, 35cl Cocktail Co. uses the clarified milk punch technique, making the drink less cloudy. “The creamy mouthfeel is still present but this drink pushes forward the other components such as ginger and cinnamon to the forefront.”
To amplify that need for warmth, the built or spirit-forward cocktail, CE006(Hibiscus) is based on the classic Manhattan and alcoholic spiced teas notorious during the holidays. “Despite the high ABV, it’s actually a complex yet approachable drink due to the versatility of the hibiscus tea and the ingredients used.”
The beauty of a bottled cocktail is the amount of control you get, more than the convenience. Niko also explains how the method they use to extract the flavors can stand alone without the garnish, although serving suggestions are also available on the website, per bottle, explaining the on-the-rocks and alternative method including the garnish ideal for the flavor profile. Control in glassware, garnish, serving size. Control in the sense of mise-en-scene, most importantly. With it, you hold the choice of where to enjoy it and who to share it with, in a way creating your own social environment.
Food and Beverage safety issues are at its all-time high recently, with the most recent one being the news of methane poisoning affecting some locally-made spirits and even other alcoholic beverages. 35cl Cocktail Co. was just days into its first release when these distillery issues broke out. Despite having been affected by it, Nico assures its customers that 35cl Cocktail Co. takes a simpler approach to spirits and does not involve making its spirits or bases from scratch, hence there is no need to worry as the process only involves extracting flavors from ingredients and bottles it as it’s ordered.
Craft bottled cocktails like 35cl Cocktail Co. provides a consistent but expressive take on the preparation and serving of cocktails. Consistency is a vital selling point. Whenever you pour yourself a drink, it tastes the way it is supposed to. Are craft bottled cocktails better than the cocktail bars? Not necessarily. Ready-to-serve cocktails are simply a way to enjoy a drink however you want to without taking away the same novelty of flavors.
Thinking of tasting these newly released cocktails first? Catch their pop-up at Purveyr Post this December 14 with their suggested servings of the holiday cocktails and maybe bring home a bottle or three.
Photos by Miguel Tarrosa
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