Representing Sri Lanka on The World’s 50 Best Bars List 2024 (51-100) is Smoke & Bitters. Co-founded by Don Ranasinghe and Lahiru Perera, the bar and smokehouse has a tiki backbone, while highlighting the natural ingredients Sri Lanka has to offer. Ranasinghe, who looks after the drinks side of the operation, tells Drinks International that the focus on house-made liquids is due to availability being more limited than for other bars which don’t face such high taxes.
“We started making house-made liqueurs, bitters, amaros and everything. It’s a lot to do with how things haven’t been available here, or if they were, taxes made them super expensive. To price a cocktail (if we went down that route) and to make it sustainable, is very challenging. So we went down this road of making stuff and through that we understood all these incredible ingredients that we have here.”
Ranasinghe says that the bar works with small-batch partners and organic farms, adding: “A lot of our produce is made to export, so the Sri Lankan market doesn’t really see it. We had to hustle that and work with partners to get things on a small-batch scale.”
Perera, who focuses on the food side of things, adds: “The more times we go into the jungle finding different ingredients, some of which we didn’t even know existed, allows us to play around with them and be inspired.” The bar’s menu changes every year, keeping five core cocktails and swapping out five, while also offering classic cocktails to guests.
Ranasinghe continues: “We have people who come back after six months requesting a drink they had before, so we try to keep a core balance by switching just five. We also always try to keep favourites available off-menu for people who come back. I love to go to a bar which I might not have been to in a while and relive that memory and experience. We’re always changing and evolving in terms of how we deliver an expression of our culture in whichever way we can.”
Established programme
Of being recognised in 50 Best, Ranasinghe says: “If you look at the 50 Best lists, we’re in a location that not many recognise as it’s a surfing village, whereas many others are from capital cities. For most people the Sri Lankan dream is to leave the country and seek better things elsewhere, but what we’ve done is establish a programme where our bartenders are trained at ground zero, from the village where we are.
“They start as a bar back and learn and go through the processes. The recognition has given the belief that there’s something to fight for and to stay here for. Food and drinks are so important to us as opposed to being solely a bar, it’s part of our drinking culture. There’s also a lot of owner-operated places coming through, which was really lacking before.”
Perera adds: “Our horizons have definitely expanded with 50 Best and it came to us in a vulnerable situation for Sri Lanka as a nation. We had the economic crisis and that’s when the bar was getting recognition. It allowed us to host some guest shifts where a lot of people came to the island, and we had a lot of cultural exchange and learning. I think through that, the whole industry has its eyes a lot more open and focused as a bar nation.”
In the spirit of championing local ingredients, the team behind Smoke & Bitters has recently opened a second venue, Raa (the local term for ‘toddy’). The venue is an arrack bar and kitchen showcasing the spirit, which is made from coconut flower sap. The traditional method of collecting the sap, called ‘toddy tapping’, involves hand-harvesting from coconut trees.
Ranasinghe notes: “It’s a unique spirit to us and our country. At the property itself there are trees which are tapped and the menu is exclusively arrack only.
“Similar to a mezcaleria, we have something just as unique and wanted to portray that in a drinks programme by offering the liquid, which is collected fresh and goes straight to the bar to be mixed in with the drinks.
“I feel like in the future Sri Lanka has everything it needs in terms of the style that we pioneered and champion, which was through necessity of making your own stuff and, as a result, became the style of bartending.
“If you’re creating or making something, whether as a chef or bartender, you’re doing it with your heart and people feel that when they consume it. That’s hospitality.”
