Klub Kembali - Stories and recipes from a bar owner in paradise…

Kosong

In most developed countries, you can buy pretty much anything you want, often anytime you like. Need ice cream at three a.m.? Feel like baking a cake on Sunday and missing some ingredients? Or want to experiment with new cocktail ingredients? Just pop into a nearby grocery store and buy what you need. Or, if you can’t find it there, get a drone from Amazon to deliver it in a couple of hours…

Moving to Indonesia six years ago, we had to suspend those expectations. And even more so when we moved to Lombok. Five years ago, Kuta, the town closest to our home in Selong Belanak, didn’t have a grocery store, just local mini markets. No disrespect to local mini markets – today I love shopping there – but as a newcomer it took some getting used to. However, things are changing, developing all the time. Now we have a Western grocery store, a French deli and lots of other offerings around us.

The challenge that remains, however, is many products are not consistently available. Two of my most dreaded Indonesian words are “kosong” and “habis” (empty and finished), meaning they don’t have what I want. This makes running a craft cocktail bar in the “middle of nowhere” a constant exercise in adaptation and supply chain wizardry. But, as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.

A little over a year ago, for example, we had the “Great Schweppes Tonic Water Shortage.” And I don’t mean Tonic Water is out today but don’t worry, you can get it next week. No, I’m talking about three to four months with no delivery date on the horizon.

So, we had to experiment with different alternatives. To make your own tonic water, you mainly need quinine or cinchona bark. Fortunately for us, there are cinchona growers in Java, so we could find a good supply of the bark that gives tonic water its distinctive bitter taste (and malaria fighting properties). Other ingredients, like citrus fruit, lemongrass and cardamom are readily available across Lombok.

Once we started experimenting with these ingredients for our own tonic syrup, the flavor was so much better than Schweppes that we made the “Klub Tonic & Gin” our main G&T cocktail. The gin that we serve with it is East Indies Archipelago Gin, made by Spice Islands Distillery in Bali, and it’s one of my personal favorites in the world. The flavor profile of the gin is so elegant that mixing it with Schweppes Tonic Water is like a cardinal sin. Our tonic syrup, however – born out of a need to overcome “kosong” – turned out to be the perfect companion for a refreshing sip on any of our tropical afternoons or evenings! When we welcome you back to Klub Kembali, ask about the other ingredients or liqueurs we make ourselves, and we’ll tell you the story behind them.

Klub Kembali Tonic Syrup

Ingredients

• 3 cups of water
• 1 orange (zest and juice)
• 1 lemon (zest and juice)
• 1 lime (zest and juice)
• 3 stalks of finely chopped lemongrass (whites only)
• 3/4 cup cinchona bark (not all cinchona bark is equally strong, experiment with the quantity to make the syrup as bitter as you like it)
• 4 smashed cardamom seeds 1/4 citric acid
  2 cups sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt

Preparation

Put all the ingredients into a pot and boil on low to medium heat for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let the syrup cool for 30 minutes. Strain out the solids, and bottle. Makes enough for approximately 20 drinks; keeps in the fridge for up to two weeks.

Klub Tonic & Gin

To create your own “Klub Tonic & Gin,” fill a glass with ice cubes, 1 1/2 oz East Indies Archipelago Gin, 3/4 oz Tonic Syrup, and top up with soda water. Stir lightly and garnish with a lime slice.