Vietnam the third: day 18, Singapore

Gin. All over the world, countries that have never grown juniper berries are making this stuff. And then a selection of these come to Singapore, to the ground floor of a crazy faux art deco tower. Atlas Bar.

I first came here in Feb 2020, during a Singapore boys’ trip that I meant to blog but never got around to. That evening, my wonderful and articulate male friends said, “We’re going to a gin bar”. Oh, I said, what is this place called. “Atlas,” they said. So I googled it, and all these links with titles like The World’s Best Bars started appearing. So I promptly changed out of my shorts and into something a little more respectable.

This time, travelling with L, a gin aficionado, there was no question of not going here. A three-storey tower of gin? Count her in. Atlas is a place where it would be easy to spend many hours, soaking up the atmosphere, the surroundings, and the booze, which is probably why they limit reservations to two hours (though a slightly generous 2 hours). They also have a very good champagne collection, including a bottle that spent 82 years in the Baltic Sea after a WW1 German U-boat sunk a shipment on the way to the Russian imperial court (for a cool $190k sgd it’s yours, though probably plus 10% service charge, and maybe tax too).

I kicked off with an Arcade Melon cocktail — gin, orange liqueur, port, cinnamon, clarified milk, and a rockmelon ball garnish. (quick pause while I finally get around to googling what clarified milk actually is, turns out it’s the whey left behind after milk is curdled, and it’s actually a known thing, not just something Atlas made up). Sweet, and fruity, the port and cinnamon were apparent, not so much of the gin, which wasn’t a huge issue for me as while I kind of like gin, I don’t love it. My second drink was a G’n’T with Singa gin, from Singapore Distillery, a London Dry style containing 13 botanicals including grains of paradise from Africa, Malaysian Sarawak pepper and Sri Lankan cinnamon. It was deliciously dry and with a hint of spice, not as peppery as I’d imagined, but very refreshing with a NZ tonic.

We also grabbed the cheese plate, which had some excellent cheeses including a delightful washed rind, and a decent brie and blue. Overall it wasn’t a cheap afternoon, but was definitely lovely, and would have loved to have spent a little more time there, if only they did 3 hour bookings. Afterall the gin list takes almost that long to read and comprehend.

We didn’t do too much wandering today, but we did make a couple of trips to the Arab quarter, only a few hundred metres from our hotel. We had a quick stroll in the morning, as it seems a lot of shops there don’t open before lunch, and a number don’t open Mondays, so we contented ourselves with checking out the colourful buildings, some bargain bins at fabric shops, and then L dived into the shop that specialises in sequins (and was remarkably restrained in not buying everything shiny).

We popped back in the evening for dinner, thinking that a place called Cappadocia might be good to try for some Turkish food. The restaurant also looks quite pretty. I went for a lamb beyti kebab, which you could also describe as a lamb sausage roll, as it’s wrapped in flatbread, though it was definitely full of all those wonderful Turkish flavours and came with a very tasty and mild garlic yogurt dip. For sipping we had the Turkish mint lemonade, a big lemon and mint flavour, though would have been even better with a little rose water. The food was good, the service okay (generally inattentive but they did unprompted comp us a couple of squares of baklava), but just a little pricey.

Tomorrow will be a bit more wandering, possibly some crepes, and a bit of time with the crazy whisky nerds at Swan Song.