Origin Bar's head bartender Adam Bursik with a copy of the menu, which he designed over two months, including many sleep-deprived nights. SINGAPORE – Choosing a cocktail can feel like a game of chance, especially at a craft cocktail bar, where many of the drinks are signature concoctions proprietary to the venue. In such a scenario, the physical menu is almost like a security blanket for guests trying to decide what to spend their $30 on.
Most cocktail menus are straightforward – a one- or two-page listing of each concoction’s name, price and ingredients. Some bars include photographs or realistic drawings of the drinks, while others use designs that express the vibe of the venue. Some bars choose to describe their drinks with flavour profile attributes, such as “floral” or “smoky”, even as they continue to push the boundaries of conventional cocktail ingredients.
At Origin Bar, located at the lobby of Shangri-La Singapore in Orange Grove Road, the current Infinity menu ticks some of these boxes. But bar manager Adam Bursik also sees it as another vessel to showcase the venue’s ethos of exploration through mixology. The approach has won Origin Bar acclaim recently.
In May, it was one of three local watering holes named in the inaugural edition of The Pinnacle Guide, a new recognition system for the world’s top bars. Two months later, Origin Bar made a strong landing at No. 32 in the Asia’s 50 Best Bars ranking for 2024.
This was a leap from its No. 95 placing in 2023. “Our bar is inspired by the idea of journeys and travel, and it’s designed in the style of a train station.
For the cocktails in the Infinity menu, we wanted to travel into the future, so to speak, and showcase our most far-fetched ideas in the form of cocktails,” Mr Bursik, who joined Origin Bar in 2017, tells The Straits Times. “I knew that I didn’t want to actually show the cocktails in the menu itself, whether in the form of photographs or realistic artwork. I wanted to use graphics and design elements that would spark our guests’ imaginations and encourage them to discover every cocktail we have created,” adds the Slovakian, who moved to Singapore some 10 years ago.
To bring this abstract vision to life, the 30something took matters into his own hands – teaching himself software such as Adobe Illustrator so that he could design every page of the menu. “I have a great deal of respect for graphic designers; the ones I’ve worked with have done amazing work. But often, what they come up with is not necessarily an exact translation of what I had in mind.
“So I started developing my design skills with labels, posters and even my own Instagram posts. Designing the Infinity menu is the culmination of all that ‘training’,” he says. Mr Adam Bursik says he wanted the graphics and design elements in the menu to match Origin Bar’s ethos of travel and exploration through mixology.
ST PHOTO: RYAN CHIONG As a fledgling designer, he took two months, including many sleep-deprived nights, to produce the 50-page hardcover cocktail menu. During that time, he also had to continue overseeing Origin Bar and the entire beverage programme for Shangri-La Singapore’s 10 food and beverage venues. Some design features of the book were adapted from previous menus, such as the flavour grid in the early pages which provides guests with a first opportunity to whittle down their choices from across the 18-drink menu.
The grid has four axes: “intense & heavy”, “light & clean”, “fresh & zesty” and “round & complex”. These descriptors are paradoxically both specific and generic by design, but they are commonly used in mixology lingo because cocktails – like food – are as much about the feelings they evoke in the drinker, as they are about taste. The early pages of the menu include a flavour grid and index for Origin Bar’s 18 cocktails.
ST PHOTO: RYAN CHIONG The cocktail index, also in the early pages, is reminiscent of more conventional cocktail menus, as it provides the ingredients list and price of the 18 drinks. The information is enough for minimalists, but those who want more details can turn the pages, which reveal more layers to the menu. Each drink has two full pages dedicated to it.
One contains an illustration that feels like it came out of a physics or astronomy textbook – featuring an atomic nucleus (or sun) surrounded by smaller electrons (or moons), complete with orbitals. Fortunately, this is not a school lesson in disguise, but an elegant depiction of the drink’s key flavours and their intensities. Mr Bursik gives the example of the Pineapplecolada, in which the main flavour, illustrated by the large sphere in the centre, is apple.
The secondary flavour, represented by the sphere located in the inner orbital, is coconut. Finally, the finishing flavour, represented by the outer orbital, is pine. The drink is “a highball style of cocktail with pine-infused calvados (apple brandy), whisky, caramelised apple cordial, coconut water reduction and sparkling water”, he says.
But the orbital breakdown is a more meaningful way of expressing what a guest can expect while retaining an element of surprise. Origin Bar’s menu page for its Pineapplecolada cocktail. ST PHOTO: RYAN CHIONG Meanwhile, the six circles at the bottom of the page are not a random artistic touch, but a legend indicating the drink’s size and strength.
“So with the Pineapplecolada, you can see that it has two horizontal dots, meaning it is of medium strength, while its three vertical dots indicate that it is a tall drink,” Mr Bursik highlights. On the facing page, alongside these practical details, is a whimsical illustration that represents the inspiration underlying the cocktail. Each drink has a unique graphical representation.
“For Pineapplecolada, we have a head full of spinning gears and apples – a reflection of the way bartenders overthink every cocktail, and the impression that people have of us creating all kinds of crazy concoctions.” But while the Pineapplecolada has some complicated ingredients, the end result in terms of taste and presentation “is actually very straightforward and simple”, says Mr Bursik. Origin Bar’s Pineapplecolada cocktail.
ST PHOTO: RYAN CHIONG Not an artist, he generated the artwork through an artificial intelligence-powered art generator, though it was not as simple as plonking a command into the bot and using the first result. “It took me a few days to find the right app, and then I still had to use collages and multiple base images, and go through several iterations to get a final image that was close to what I envisioned,” he says. Just as bartenders are intentional about every aspect of their boozy innovations – from the type of glass to the shape of ice – Mr Bursik worked closely with the printers to ensure the hardcopy of the menu reflects a playful sense of exploration.
“We use holographic pigments on the cover and interior pages, which are not the cheapest add-on, but I wanted something luxurious and futuristic. At the same time, I had saved some money by designing the menu myself,” he adds. Customer feedback on the menu – both in terms of the drinks and the graphic design – has been exceedingly positive, with many expressing the excitement and curiosity that Mr Bursik had set out to evoke.
“Regulars have said they can see how we’re continuing our bar philosophy of ‘journey’ while still evolving. And new customers are returning to try all the cocktails, which is exactly what we had hoped for,” he adds. Mr Bursik used artificial intelligence-powered art generators and his self-taught Adobe Illustrator skills to bring his vision for Origin Bar’s menu to life.
ST PHOTO: RYAN CHIONG The recent accolades have further affirmed the bar’s efforts to keep things interesting for customers in the competitive craft bar scene. “It is an incredible achievement for us. We are surrounded by so many amazing bars, not just in Singapore, but also in Asia.
We have a small team – just nine members – but they have all worked so hard this past year,” says Mr Bursik. In keeping with the forward-thinking Infinity cocktail menu, he is already working on ideas for the next iteration, which will likely be launched in early 2025. “I’m shaping the big-picture concept and design, and how our drinks will match both.
I intend to push the boundaries again for myself and try some new things that have never been seen before on a cocktail menu,” he promises. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you. Read 3 articles and stand to win rewards Spin the wheel now.
