Bangkok tends to trail global trends—the latest to top the agenda: sustainabilty. While zero waste cocktails are nothing new to Bangkok, they're starting to proliferate. But how much impact do these creative concoctions really have? We spoke to some experts to find out how and why they’re utilizing products most of us would throw in the trash.  

 

 

 

Mark Lloyd, a chemist turned mixologist and F&B consultant who’s been bartending for over 20 years in the UK, New York and Europe, is spreading the zero waste ethos across Asia by designing menus for bars and boutique hotels in the region. At last year’s Wonderfruit festival, he ran a “zero waste” bar that utilized trash from other vendors. Although “zero waste” might be a misnomer—is it really zero waste when there’s still compostable waste produced and ice used in the build?—Lloyd’s pop-up bar gave us cocktails like “All About the Pineapple,” which made use of the entire fruit—juice, pulp, skin and all. 

Lloyd’s other pearls of wisdom offer solutions to common wastage issues. “Citrus is the biggest waste item at any bar,” he tells us. To avoid this, he suggests replacing the sourness from citrus with a shrub—a vinegar-based syrup made from fruit, like pineapple cores. For another ingenious homemade mixer, he suggests roasting watermelon skin and blending it into juice. “It results in a grassy flavor that works really well with gin,” he says. “You can also take the seeds, roast them and grind them into powder, which can be infused into vodka for a savory taste.”

 

 

Aaron Feder, an F&B consultant who until recently managed the bar at Phrom Phong’s new Ivy 47, hits the nail on the head here. How much of the “zero waste” approach is all show and no substance? As he acknowledges, we’re fighting against an unerring tide of waste from big businesses. “You save 10 kilos of trash in a bar and use bamboo straws, but there’s Foodpanda, where you send out 3,000 plastic boxes every day,” he says.

Yet the approach, he notes, has deep roots in kitchen culture. “In any good French kitchen, there will be what’s called a ‘utilization shelf,’ where any byproduct that might be usable is placed,” Feder tells us. “Good restaurants have always turned waste into profit. It’s a modern name applied to a very old culinary technique. At Ivy 47, for example, the egg whites are used for drinks, while the egg yolks are sent to the kitchen on the floor below.” Zero waste, it seems, is great for business, and the environment happens to benefit from it, too. 

 

 

Fabio Brugnolaro, formerly of SulBKK and Vogue Lounge, shared with us the influence that zero waste has had on his new opening, Copper Bar Bangkok. After recently competing in Thailand’s first ever zero waste cocktail competition, his eyes were opened to new opportunities. “After the competition, I was super happy because I discovered how to save money,” he tells us with unusual candor. But being green doesn’t just refer to the extra cash the globe-trotting Brugnolaro is pocketing. “As with food, everything tastes better fresh. For example, the crème de menthe you buy at stores can sometimes taste manufactured. But if you make it fresh, using the mint stems, the smell is stronger and better.”