Buddha Bar is one of the most luxurious bar franchises in the world. Its 25 locations worldwide have set a high standard in providing a unique experience for guests. DrinkManila was fortunate to have the chance to sit down with the chief bar manager of Buddha-Bar Worldwide, Matthias Giroud, to discuss his journey through the bartending world and what we can expect from the Cocktail Festival at Buddha-Bar Manila on Saturday, October 15.

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Mixologist and Buddha-Bar Chief Bar Manager Matthias Giroud and his team prepared nine special drinks (plus a surprise) for Buddha-Bar Manila’s one-night-only Cocktail Festival

Starting in the bar industry at 16 (he made a choice to pursue working in a bar over being a florist or woodcarver), the native of Guadaloupe (a small island in France) was part of the team that opened the precursor to Buddha-Bar, the Barfly in Paris way back in 1995, when he was 18. He stayed for a few years and then went his own way traveling the world through different bars, but ultimately came back to the fold 10 years ago. Since then, he has been pushing the boundaries of what a bartender can do.

At first glance, he looks like a rocker: rings with skulls and various sizes and materials on his fingers, wrists wrapped in metal and beads, a scarf haphazardly yet stylishly draped around his neck. But he has none of the rockstar air of importance or arrogance. He treats his bar team like collaborators. “When I open a place, I take a lot of things from the bar team, and I give something back to them. But it is really an exchange,” he shares. “I will give something from my experience, and you give me something from you, because it’s your country. I ask them what they think, because they know the guests more than me. They know the place. I adjust.”

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When asked about mixology vs. bartending, he lets out a laugh. “The word mixology came out because bartending changed. Bartending is the base of the bar, all bars, and there are different styles of bars. To tell you the truth, in the beginning I didn’t like this word mixology. But I understand mixology now. It means more, it means fun, creation, we maybe cook something, we find something spicy, you will create experience inside the drink. This for me is mixology. Creating the experience inside and outside the drink.”

This is the third Cocktail Festival taking place in Manila. Giroud says he has observed a change in the bar scene over here. “Slowly but surely I feel that the bar is becoming more and more important, and the cocktails, more developed. The bartender community is more organized and developed. More people are doing homemade. When we opened Buddha Bar Manila, I didn’t feel this—I think it’s changed quickly for you, for the past few years.”

He and his team have prepared nine drinks (plus a surprise) for the festival, grouped into three sets. The descriptions of the drinks are enough to make us thirsty.

The first set is all about the gin experience. “Gin has been becoming for important in the last two years,” he shares. The first gin experience will be from Peru (elderflower, calamansi liqueur, homemade grapefruit soda, and huacatay herb from Peru). The second is a spritz (aperol infusion with jasmine flower, sweet white wine and prosecco topped with jasmine and gin foam). The last drink in the gin theme is an infusion (gin infusion with Timut pepper from Nepal and cucumber, lime, and ginger ale).

The second set of drinks might surprise people. He has chosen to do three mocktails—or soft cocktails, as he prefers to call them. His dedication to developing mocktails or soft cocktails, is both inspiring and practical. He aims to broaden the mindset of people (bartender and customer alike), and to give customers who would like to experience the range of flavors of a drink without the alcohol some attention and consideration. He also recognizes that there is a big market for this. The first soft cocktail is inspired by gin—a fresh, gin-styled drink without the alcohol (homemade reduction with genever (where gin comes from), with calamansi and rose flower water with tonic). The second is a fresh juice (fresh beetroot juice, fresh apple and fresh mango, with a touch of ginger). The third is a special Americano-inspired drink. Americano is a cocktail made of Campari, sweet vermouth, and club soda. For the soft cocktail version of this, he will mix fresh grape juice, aging syrup, and bitter soda (cooked and concentrated tonic water with a touch of ginger).

The third set of drinks is inspired by the Street Art movement, not so much in flavor, but in presentation.

Apart from the cocktails Giroud will be serving, earlier in the day there will be a cocktail competition for new bartenders and students. Twelve entries have been selected for them to judge. This is the first time they are doing something like this in Manila. He hopes that this will create a dialogue with the new breed of bartenders and open their minds to possibilities as early as now: “I want to push the bartending community around the world. I want to push them to try to go out and get inspiration outside.”

The Cocktail Festival at Buddha-Bar Manila takes place tonight—October 15, 2016 at 7 p.m.

Favorite bars: Nightjar in London—the only bar where I tasted everything on the menu. Malabar Bar in Lima, Peru. The bar manager is amazing. His name is Luis. He takes inspiration only from the Amazon. All the products he uses are from Amazonia. It’s amazing what he can do with it.

Favorite drink/spirit: Cognac with ice. I don’t tell French people this because I put ice in my cognac. I like it that way. Also, if you put a bottle of cognac in the freezer, the sweetness of the cognac is released from the cold.

Strangest ingredient you’ve used or encountered: Definitely from China. China has a lot of strange ingredients. They gave me alcohol infused with baby mice.

Drink you’ve made the most: Mojito

If you were a cocktail, what cocktail would you be? Tommy’s margarita—sweet, sour, fresh, but powerful (from the tequila)

Dream drinking buddy/customer: Harry Potter. I will do a special potion of flavors. And when I put the potion in front of him, he will take it in his hands. When he touches it, the cocktail will completely change. I like to create experience, and to me, the magic world is a big experience.

What makes a good bartender? For me, the professional bartender now, if I take one guy from my team and I put him in a nightclub, in a luxury hotel bar, in a classic place, in a cocktail place, he can work in each place because he can adapt. Because he is a bartender. It is the bartending form.

 

Chrysmas is your go-to gal for all things involving alcohol. She maneuvers her way through the Metro's traffic in her black boots and fishnet stockings, scouring places where one can indulge one's self in libations of all kinds. From Poblacion to Pasay, Malate to Makati, Tagaytay to Taguig. Ask her where to go to get your choice of poison and chances are she's already there holding a good stiff drink in one hand and a pen in the other.

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