How Mostly Harmless bar is reinventing cocktail culture with its alcohol-free drinks

South China Morning Post

a day ago

Much ado has been made about Mostly Harmless' announcement in March that the
award-winning bar was going completely non-alcoholic. The Post previously reported that, as well as being creatively excited by the pivot, founder Ezra Star and her team had made the decision based on practical considerations: it was in response to difficulties in renewing the liquor licence for the bar in Sai Ying Pun.
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Challenges in perception abound for
a bar that doesn't serve any alcohol . 'We've had people come in and they're like, 'Oh, you don't serve alcohol?'' Star recounts. 'Then they turn around and go across the street to [bar and restaurant] Call Me Al. Which is fine, we can't control that.' For Star, though, the change in focus is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and an opportunity to expand on what she feels
Mostly Harmless has been doing since day one: taking a more culinary approach to cocktail making.
Originally, Mostly Harmless made its name with a pared-back menu featuring four local ingredients rotated each evening depending on what was fresh and best available, and no garnishes. The team used, and continues to use, kitchen techniques such as boiling, reducing and sous-viding to bring out the best of seasonal local ingredients. Alcohol was added to complement these ingredients rather than the other way around, subverting the norms of cocktail creation.
Despite the zero-alcohol approach, Mostly Harmless' traditional presentation of rotational signatures remains unchanged. Photo: Jocelyn Tam
'When I created Mostly Harmless, I was tired of looking at the base spirit as the main thing … I would say we're more culinary now than ever, because we no longer have to worry about [including] a spirit. Now all we worry about is how we make this feel good on the tongue,' Star says.
For her, this is a question of chemistry and texture, as the current direction goes beyond a few non-alcoholic options tacked on at the end of a menu. Star explains how using potato or bean starch, or fermenting nut milk, helps create textures and notes that evoke alcohol. Her team has also been able to recreate, in flavour and mouthfeel, their own non-alcoholic versions of brown spirit, white spirit and various modifiers.
The Common Rue, one of Mostly Harmless' new non-alcoholic signatures, is made possible by Ezra Star and the team's relationship to local herbal and medicinal shops. Photo: Jocelyn Tam
Much of the above is foundational to the Agave & Tomato, one of the earliest zero-alcohol concoctions announced alongside Mostly Harmless' change of direction. The drink reverse engineers the flavours of agave spirits and tomato vermouth to create something reminiscent of a martini in its two-ingredient construction.