How this bartender is bringing traditional Chinese medicine to cocktails
Published: 6:15pm, 17 Feb 2025 New faces of heritage series: For four artists at the forefront of their craft, a deep sense of Hong Kong's past is fuelling their vision for the future. See our other feature on Kiri T
Stop me if you've heard this one: a Chinese medicine doctor walks into a bar, where he spots an old acquaintance behind the counter, an investment banker-turned-bartender, and he says to the guy …
Yeah, you probably haven't. But anyway, that night in 2019, at the Little Lab bar in Central, the doctor had already had a hot toddy at another spot nearby, and as his buddy was mixing him an old fashioned, he was reminded that such cocktails had doubled as health remedies for centuries. The hot toddy, featuring hot whisky, honey, lemon and spice, had been a popular recipe to treat colds in Britain for about three centuries. Bitters, like the ones being mixed for the old fashioned, on the other hand, were believed to cure upset stomachs and had been added to old fashioneds since the 1800s. A cocktail made with Magnolia Lab's product. Photo: Courtesy of Magnolia Labs As the two friends chatted, it dawned on them that cocktails and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) shared certain similarities: both were often crafted from botanicals and many liqueurs were once considered to have healing properties. European staples such as Campari and Jägermeister, to name but two, started out as herbal potions to be consumed as an aperitif and digestif. Similarly, Chinese herbal wines have been brewed for hundreds of years – but unlike their Western counterparts, these were not often consumed recreationally.
In that dimly lit bar, after much deliberation – and a few choice libations – Chinese medicine practitioner James Ting and bartender Dennis Mak mused over the fact that Chinese doctors have always been looking for ways to innovate TCM, to integrate the ancient practice into a modern lifestyle. So the question became: why not try bringing such traditions into Hong Kong's cocktail scene? Their answer: Magnolia Lab , which, since 2020 has been concocting the 'oriental botanical liqueur', aiming to revive familiar flavours and herbal traditions, and infuse them into modern drinking culture.
'There is an old saying,' says Mak, 'that alcohol is the elder of a hundred medicines, meaning alcohol is always a very important element in Chinese medicine.'
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