Culinary cocktails crafted using kitchen secrets, techniques, and savoury ingredients are becoming a trend in Hong Kong's cocktail scene. The latest bar to join this movement is Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong's innovative bar Argo, whose new cocktail menu presents a series of drinks rooted in Hong Kong's culinary traditions.
Replacing its award-winning 'Here Today, Gone Tomorrow' menu that celebrates six staple ingredients facing extinction, the second volume of their cocktail series presents drinks using traditional Hong Kong ingredients, carefully crafted by Argo's bar team led by beverage manager Lorenzo Antinori.
Watch the video below for a first look at Argo’s new Cook Book menu:
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Guests can taste refreshing and delicious concoctions with flavours of soybean, apricot kernel, XO sauce, vegan char siu, black vinegar, and aged tea. To cater to various taste preferences, the new menu features twelve cocktails that use the highlighted ingredients in two different ways. For example, the vegan char siu-flavoured drinks can be sampled in Hellfire Club, a pineapple sour made with rum, smoked pineapple, and char sui nectar (made with soy sauce, vegan oyster sauce, sesame oil, and maple syrup) and the fizzy BBQ & Tonic crafted with gin, vegan char siu distillate, fig leaf, and tonic water. Those who want to learn about the production and origin of the cocktail ingredients can access an educational recipe video from the menu's QR code.
According to Antinori, the new menu hopes to pique guests’ curiosity and sense of familiarity. “But most importantly, we created the menu to share our love for Hong Kong and its great culinary heritage,” he adds.
Other standout cocktails include – Magic Bean, a cross between a gimlet and a Bloody Mary, is a savoury, soybean-focused cocktail made with vodka, tomato water, wasabi, and soy whey from Ān, a local soy-based product brand by Chef Vicky Lau. And XO Negroni, a punchy and smoky drink using mezcal, XO-infused vermouth – using Lung King Heen's (Four Seasons' three Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant) famous vegetarian XO sauce – Campari and Aperol, and chocolate bitters.
Along with a new cocktail menu, Argo is also releasing a new floral and citrus Saison beer called Golden Orb in collaboration with local craft beer brand Carbon Brews. The brew uses ingredients foraged in abandoned farms and remote trails around Tai O, like wild peppercorns, Chinese box orange leaves, and calamondin, to make the farmhouse-style ale. The Golden Orb is served in beer cans at Argo and Carbon Brews’ taproom in Central.
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