Fizz n Fig. Light. Fresh. Aromatic.

Some cocktails are created because a menu needs filling. Others arrive because someone set a challenge and the most interesting answer turned out not to be the one submitted.

Fizz n Fig belongs firmly in the second category. It exists at Nectar not because it won anything, but because it survived something. And that story, it turns out, is more interesting than a trophy.

The Competition That Started It

The Diplomático Artisans of Taste is one of the more creatively demanding cocktail competitions in the industry. The brief is not simply to make a good drink using Diplomático rum. It is to explore a specific narrative, to find the connection between the spirit and the ingredients around it, and to tell a story through what ends up in the glass.

The brief I was given asked him to explore the relationship between sugarcane rum and cocoa. Two ingredients with a shared history, a shared geography, and a shared capacity for depth and sweetness when handled well.

It was the first cocktail competition I had ever entered. Most bartenders approaching their first competition focus primarily on technique. Something impressive, something that demonstrates control and precision, something that will make judges lean forward. I made a different decision. Rather than leading with technique, he decided to lead with a story. Something that reflected the spirit of Diplomático, the history of its core ingredients, and the particular journey that had brought him and Nectar to Edinburgh.

What emerged from that process was not one cocktail but two. One went to the competition. The other stayed behind and ended up on the menu.

This is the story of the one that stayed.

A Journey Across Continents

To understand Fizz n Fig, it helps to understand where its ingredients come from and why the combination means something beyond the glass.

Sugarcane has one of the more remarkable migration stories in agricultural history. It originated in India, where it was cultivated for thousands of years before spreading west through Persia and eventually into the Mediterranean, including Greece, where its sweetness became woven into the food and drink culture of the region. From there it travelled further west, carried by colonisation and trade into the Caribbean and the Americas, where the conditions for growing it were almost perfectly suited. Rum, made from sugarcane molasses, became one of the defining spirits of that part of the world.

That geographical arc, from South Asia through the Mediterranean to the Americas, felt personally significant when I began building this drink. His own background is shaped by different cultures coming together. A Swiss upbringing. Greek heritage. A career that moved through different countries before arriving in Edinburgh. The journey of sugarcane and the journey of the person building a cocktail around it were not entirely different stories.

Diplomático rum carries the American end of that arc. It is produced in Venezuela using traditional pot still and column still methods, with a sweetness and depth that comes from the quality of the sugarcane and the care of the production process. It is one of the more complex rums available at a price point that makes it genuinely accessible, and that combination of quality and approachability is part of why it works as the foundation for a cocktail that is meant to be enjoyed rather than studied.

What Goes Into the Glass

The build of Fizz n Fig reflects the story behind it at every stage.

Diplomático rum forms the base. The sweetness and depth of the rum are the foundation everything else is built around, and the choice to let it speak clearly rather than bury it under technique is deliberate. This is a cocktail that respects its lead ingredient.

Lillet Blanc is the second element. It is an aperitivo-style wine from Bordeaux, built on a blend of wine and citrus liqueurs, with a gentle bitterness and floral complexity that gives it structure without aggression. In the context of this cocktail, it does two things simultaneously. It cuts through the sweetness of the rum with just enough bitterness to create balance, and it adds an elegance to the mid-palate that a spirit-only build would lack. Lillet is one of those ingredients that works best when it is present without being obvious, and that is exactly how it functions here.

Chocolate syrup is the third element, and it carries two references at once. The brief asked me to explore the connection between rum and cocoa, and the chocolate syrup fulfils that brief directly. But it also carries a more personal reference: his Swiss upbringing, and the particular relationship between Switzerland and chocolate that anyone who grew up there understands intuitively. It is a small detail, but it is the kind of detail that makes a cocktail feel authored rather than assembled.

Rose bitters bring the elements together. Bitters in cocktail making function the way seasoning functions in cooking. They do not dominate a flavour profile but they round it, soften it, and create coherence between ingredients that might otherwise sit in separate registers. The rose character of these particular bitters adds a subtle floral complexity that echoes the Lillet and lifts the chocolate without sweetening it further.

The final element is fig leaf soda from Three Cents, a Greek artisan producer whose sodas are built around botanically complex flavours rather than straightforward sweetness. Fig leaf has a green, almost woody quality that is distinct from the flavour of a ripe fig. It adds lift and length to the drink, making something that could sit heavily on the palate feel instead like it is moving forward. The carbonation from the soda opens the whole drink up, taking what is on paper a complex combination of flavours and making it feel light, fresh and easy to drink.

Complex Thinking, Simple Drinking

On paper, the ingredient list of Fizz n Fig looks like it should be challenging. Rum, aperitivo wine, chocolate, rose bitters, fig leaf soda. Five distinct elements, each with a strong identity, pulled from different parts of the world and different flavour registers.

The reason it works is the particular affinity between these specific ingredients when they are in the same glass together.

Figs and cocoa have a natural compatibility. Both carry a richness and a slight earthiness that makes them feel like they belong together. Chocolate and rum share obvious common ground, the sweetness and depth of both coming from the same sugarcane origin that is central to the story of the drink. Bitterness from an aperitivo cuts through sweetness when there is enough acidity to support it, and the Lillet provides exactly that structure. The fig leaf soda provides the acidity and the lift that allow everything to resolve cleanly rather than sitting heavily on the finish.

The result is one of the more complex flavour structures on our menu, built from ingredients that travel across continents and carry genuine stories between them. But the drink itself feels completely approachable. That gap between the complexity of the thinking and the simplicity of the drinking is precisely what I was aiming for when he built it.

If you want to understand more about how that process works at Nectar, from the initial idea through to the finished glass, we wrote about it in detail here.

The Cocktail That Stayed Behind

Fizz n Fig was not the drink I submitted to the Diplomático Artisans of Taste competition. That detail matters.

The research process that the competition prompted led him further and further into technical territory. The final submission involved a fig-infused coffee liqueur and allspice rum, a build that was genuinely impressive in its complexity and demonstrated real technical ambition. It was the kind of drink that competition judges notice. More demanding, more elaborate, more clearly designed to make a statement in a competitive context.

But it was also less approachable. Technically accomplished and considerably less easy to spend an evening with.

Fizz n Fig was the drink that emerged in the earlier stages of that research process, before the competition logic took over and pushed things toward greater complexity. It was the version built around the story rather than the technique. The one that captured the idea behind the challenge without losing the balance and ease that make a cocktail genuinely enjoyable to drink.

When the competition was over, Fizz n Fig was still there. And it was clearly the better bar drink of the two.

It joined the menu, where it has remained. A cocktail that did not win a competition but earned something more useful: a permanent place in the rotation and a table of regulars who order it by name.

When to Order It

Fizz n Fig sits in an interesting position on the menu because it works across more of the evening than most cocktails manage.

The Lillet and the fig leaf soda give it enough lift and freshness to work well as an early drink, the kind of thing that opens an evening without closing it off. But the depth of the Diplomático and the chocolate give it enough substance to hold its own later in the evening alongside food or as a considered drink in its own right.

It pairs naturally with the lighter dishes on the food menu. The Cheese Filo Pastry works well alongside it, the richness of the feta echoing the chocolate and rum without competing with the freshness of the fig. The Grilled Halloumi is another natural pairing, the saltiness of the cheese sitting well against the sweetness of the Diplomático.

If you are approaching the cocktail menu for the first time and want something that covers a wide range of flavour without committing to anything too challenging, Fizz n Fig is one of the most reliable starting points. It asks nothing of you except curiosity.

You can see the full cocktail menu here, or book your table here.

Nectar is at 73 Broughton Street, Edinburgh EH1 3RJ. Open Tuesday to Thursday from 5pm until 11pm, Friday from 5pm until 1am, Saturday from noon until 1am, and Sunday from noon until 11pm. Monday closed.

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