Raising the bar

Arey Barker was in a busy marketplace and sniffing his way around. The organisers of a competition had left him — and the other contestants — with 30 Singapore dollars each, with which they had to buy ingredients for a signature cocktail they were to create. Barker was 26, and itched to do something different. He walked into an Indian spice shop and bought some star anise, cloves, dry dates and curry powder. At the contest, he put them all together — along with baby tomatoes, strawberries and vodka — and whipped up a mean Bloody Mary.

“The judges said mine was completely different; it was spicy, savoury and very local,” he says, recalling the drink he rustled up at the Asia final flare competition held in Singapore.

Four years on, the man from Bali is known across the Indonesian island for the expertise with which he conjures up a drink. When he walks into the popular hotels in Seminyak, the province’s quaint southern part, he is hailed by expats. Clearly, people who have tasted his drinks cannot forget him. I am no exception.

When I first meet Barker, he is bartending at The Bikini, one of the properties of 8 Degree Projects,  a hospitality and lifestyle group with a presence across Bali.

Barker is their chief mixologist, in charge of creating the entire range of cocktails for all their outlets. I have just landed in Bali with both my ears blocked. “I need something hot that will open up my ears,” I tell him.

He takes his time. And finally, there it is, on the table, a drink that looks like hot lemon tea with a cinnamon stick dunked in it. The liquid goes down my throat warm and soothing. There’s absinthe, bourbon, cinnamon, lemon, honey, Barker’s trademark spice syrup and three crushed beans of Balinese coffee in it. It works like magic.

Flair for flare

Ari Narayana, who later changed his name to Arey Barker, was a 16-year-old student in vocational school when he first saw his teacher doing a flare — performatively juggling liquor bottles, cocktail shakers and other bartending tools. “It looked very sexy,” he says. And he knew right then that it was what he wanted to do.

Over the years, he has won over 14 national bartending competitions in Indonesia and made it to the finals of several international flare-offs. He is known for his unique blends of global and local flavours, which always find drinkers licking their lips at the familiarity of the flavours while also quizzically wondering, “But what else did you put in here?” If there is one word that describes his style, it’s ‘fresh’. “I love using fresh ingredients. I love to combine flavours,” he says.

His home-made citrus syrup, for instance, has goji berry, raspberry, dragon fruit, orange peel and honey. His spice syrup combines cloves, star anise, cinnamon, honey, vanilla and sugar. “I use native ingredients such as Balinese coffee, which has a citric and chocolaty character. It combines well with whisky and spice. I also use soursop and jackfruit combined with cinnamon and coconut. I stick with the ambience of this island. Most of my flavours are tropical, while some are western and punchy,” he says.

Global shots

It was after a seven-year stint at the global five-star chain W resorts in Seminyak that he moved to 8 Degrees in 2017.

While training in Amsterdam in 2012, at a certification course from the Bar Academy, London, he learned how to distil vodka.

In 2014, he was chosen to do a bar takeover (be a guest bartender for a few hours) at Tokyo’s High Five, rated one of the best watering holes in the world. “What I learnt from Japanese bartenders is to work with patience and discipline. I brought back that knowledge to my team in Bali,” he says.

Barker sometimes ages whisky-based cocktails in barrels. The drink lies sealed in a barrel for three months before emerging fermented and with different flavours. His signature drink is called The Cloud, a combination of tea foam, gin, cucumber and spice. It is cold, spicy and refreshing. There’s also Bonfire, which combines passion fruit, coffee, chocolate, coconut, absinthe, herbs and chartreuse with whiskey or rum, depending on the mood. A cocktail called the Barker Special mixes vodka with passion fruit, chocolate and soda.

“I love to play witch, mixing things,” he laughs.

In his head is a flavour map. He comes up with new ideas drawn from food, collaborating with the chefs at the hotels he works in. “When I walk to my office I smell the kitchen,” he says.

For one of his cocktails he uses a beef sauce. The French love it, he claims. Once he saw a sauce being prepared with wine, soy sauce, salt, sugar and vinegar. He tasted a bit, and then prepared a cocktail mixing brandy and grape juice with a sauce of wine, soy sauce, salt and sugar. Voila! He named it Friend of friends. “Naming my cocktails is the hardest part,” he chuckles.

Barker plans to open his own bar by 2019. That should be stirring.

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