Jakarta's chocolate martini making quite a stir in town
Maria Kegel, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
New York has the Manhattan and Long Island Iced Tea, Singapore has its Sling and this year Jakarta joined the ranks with its first signature drink.
The chocolate martini is the toast of the town, as well as in far-flung places such as Cape Town, New York, Dallas, London and just across the water in Singapore.
Barely six months old, it was the brainchild of Luis Fernandes, the managing director of The Dharmawangsa Hotel in South Jakarta, whose passion for chocolate was coupled with inspiration from the movie Chocolat in creating the drink.
While its name may conjure images of a murky colored liquid with an ominous olive bobbing on the bottom of a martini glass, which may or may not put off the experienced tippler, be not afraid. Its appearance is as pleasing as its smooth taste.
The rim of the martini glass is embellished with melted Belgian chocolate, and the drink itself is clear. This is because Fernandes chose the colorless creme de cacao to blend with Stolichnaya vodka.
At the bottom rests its single garnish: a Hershey's kiss.
"The word martini throws everyone because they think it's a very traditional drink, like in the James Bond movies, and they think it's stark and harsh. Martinis are the fashion and to do a chocolate one is just to everyone's taste," Gregory Zahn, the executive assistant in charge of food and beverage at the Dharmawangsa Hotel, said.
Although Vanity Fair and Virgin Airlines' in-flight magazine have featured it in recent issues, news of the chocolate martini has mostly traveled by word-of-mouth. Hotels from as far away as South Africa have called for the recipe, which, Fernandes said, is given out, but its secret was in the perfection of making it.
"It's a simple recipe: There are only two types of alcohol in there, and you just need to put the time and energy into it to work it out," added Zahn.
Its popularity abroad was first reported when a band of golf players on a course in Singapore called the hotel saying they were looking for the place where chocolate martinis were served after a guest had raved about it to them.
Later that week, the caller and 13 other guests came down to play a couple days of golf and, of course, to spend the nights drinking the martinis.
"It was just funny to get a cold call from someone looking for the chocolate martini hotel," Zahn said.
"It's a great drink for conversation as it's very intriguing and different," Fernandes said. "I think chocolate is something that is very intimate, and one of those things that everyone enjoys. You don't think about the alcohol part of it, you think more about the chocolate," Fernandes said.
While it is not a breakfast drink, Zahn said it could be enjoyed at lunch or for afternoon tea, and of course, as before dinner as well as after dinner as it has the sweetness of a liqueur.
It has become the hotel's bestselling drink and it is prepared with great ceremony in front of the person who orders it, with first-timers urged to make a wish before the drink is poured into the glass.
If you are seated at a table, a small fold-up table is brought over with a tray of condiments, the mixer, and everything that goes into the drink. If you are seated at the bar, the ritual is performed there.
The emphasis is on the perfected style of stirring it and pouring it in the glass, Fernandes said. And no one has ever asked to alter the recipe.
"It's the whole ritual of the preparation and people see that, like the tradition of afternoon tea, it happens in front of you and the expectation must be 'wow', because it's so well prepared," Fernandes said.
"We wanted to make the martini very personal so it had to be made in front of you. It's not something that is created behind the scenes and then brought to you."
The chocolate martini underwent a trial and error process which involved every part of the drink, from getting the right chocolate on the rim to making sure the kiss was sitting upright.
And contrary to Bond's preference, the drink is stirred not shaken.
As simple as it may sound, Zahn said testing the various mixing methods, proportions of alcohol and choice of chocolates to perfect the drink became a delicate process to balance them all.
"There's a fine line between the drier style of alcohol and a very sweet alcohol, and you are just trying to balance them up some, so they cancel each other out. So you're looking for that sweet spot, you know when it hits it. It is very difficult to get so we're continuing to reappraise the bartenders all the time to make sure that it's not too sweet or it's not too bitter," he said.
Different chocolates also had to be tried to find the right one to adorn the rim.
Even getting the kiss to sit upright in the glass took awhile to perfect, with bartenders practicing repeatedly to prevent it from going upside down or on its side.
"People can laugh, relax and enjoy these drinks, and at the end of the day, in the world that we live in, what you need is to create things to make people happy," Fernandes said.