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From Concept to Craft. How We Build Cocktails at Nectar.
- chrisarazim
- Feb 2
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 26
When Panos and I first started talking about what the bar at Nectar was going to be, the easiest version of the conversation would have been to agree on a list of well-executed classics and a handful of crowd-pleasing signatures. Something approachable, something that would not confuse people, something that would move quickly on a busy Friday night.
We did not do that.
What we wanted to build was a cocktail programme that had a genuine point of view. Not drinks designed to look good on Instagram, not a menu assembled from whatever was trending in London that season, but cocktails rooted in a specific identity: Greek and Mediterranean in character, technically serious, and built on a philosophy that treats the drink as something worth spending real time on before it ever reaches a guest.
That ambition has shaped everything we have done behind the bar since we opened. It has also pushed us into territory that has been uncomfortable at times, competitive in ways we did not fully anticipate, and consistently more rewarding than the easier version would have been.
Why mixing drinks is not the same as making cocktails
There is a version of cocktail making that involves taking established recipes, following them accurately, and serving them consistently. That is a skill and it matters. But it is not what we are trying to do at Nectar, and understanding the difference is the starting point for everything else.
The cocktails on our menu are not assembled from standard components. They are built from the spirit up, which means that in many cases the spirit itself is altered before a single other ingredient is added. The flavour profile of the base is changed deliberately and permanently through a process that begins days or sometimes weeks before the drink appears in front of a guest.
This approach requires a different relationship with time than conventional bar work. You cannot decide on a Tuesday that you want to serve an infused spirit on Wednesday. The preparation runs ahead of the service by as much as the technique requires, which means Panos is always working on multiple stages of multiple drinks simultaneously. Some things are infusing. Some are clarifying. Some are being tested and adjusted. The bar behind the scenes looks considerably less elegant than the finished drink at the table suggests.
That gap between process and presentation is intentional. The guest does not need to see the work. They just need to taste the result.
The techniques that define our menu
There are four processes that appear across the Nectar cocktail menu, sometimes individually and sometimes in combination. Understanding what they do and why we use them gives you a clearer picture of what makes a drink here different to what you would find at a standard cocktail bar.
Infusion is the most foundational. Rather than adding flavour at the mixing stage through syrups or liqueurs, we introduce it directly into the spirit itself. Ginger, chilli, fruit, botanicals: the character of these ingredients is permanently embedded into the base before anything else is added. The result is a depth and integration that cannot be achieved by adding a flavoured syrup at the end. The Warmth Within is the clearest example on the menu: Patron Reposado infused with fresh ginger and chilli, the heat moving inward through the spirit rather than sitting on the surface of the finished drink. It is recognisably a spicy tequila cocktail and also completely unlike any spicy tequila cocktail most people have encountered before.
Clarification removes colour and cloudiness from a cocktail while preserving its entire flavour profile. The process uses a milk punch technique: the addition of dairy causes the proteins to bind with the particles responsible for cloudiness, which are then strained out, leaving a liquid that is completely clear but retains every aromatic and flavour compound that was present before clarification. The Tzatziki Martini is our most striking use of this technique. A cocktail built on cucumber, yogurt, dill and garlic arrives at the table crystal clear. People pick it up, hold it to the light, and look slightly confused. That confusion is part of the experience: the visual information suggests one thing and the flavour delivers something entirely different.
The Chemistry Lessons uses the same clarification process on a Woodford Reserve bourbon base. Bourbon is a deeply coloured spirit and the expectation of colour is baked into how most people experience it. Serving a clarified bourbon cocktail that is as clear as water produces a particular kind of surprise that we have found consistently enjoyable to watch.
Milk punch as a standalone technique, distinct from its use in clarification, produces a softer, rounder texture in a finished drink. It binds disparate components together in a way that straight mixing cannot achieve and creates a body and mouthfeel that changes how the flavour is experienced. Several of our more complex cocktails use it precisely for this reason.
Foams are the technique that guests notice first visually but often underestimate in terms of what they contribute. A foam is not a garnish. It is the first thing your palate encounters before the liquid arrives, and it carries aroma and flavour that frames the entire drinking experience. The orange foam on the Mountain Chalet is not decorative. It is doing real work on every sip.
Competition as a creative process
One of the I made early on was to enter cocktail competitions. Not primarily because we wanted the recognition, though we would be dishonest if we said that did not matter, but because the discipline of competing forces a level of creative rigour that is difficult to manufacture any other way.
A competition brief gives you constraints: a specific spirit, a specific theme, a judging panel with defined criteria. Working within those constraints productively requires you to push past your first ideas, which are almost always the obvious ones, and find something that is genuinely original rather than merely competent. That process, repeated across multiple competitions, has made both of us significantly better at building cocktails than we would have been without it.
The Patron Margarita Challenge was one of the more demanding briefs we have entered. The challenge asks you to build a Margarita that is both recognisably within the tradition of the drink and genuinely distinctive. The Citrus Spice, which we developed for that competition, reached the advanced rounds and brought us into conversation with some of the strongest bartenders currently working in Scotland. The experience of those conversations, the standards being applied, the ideas being shared, fed directly back into what we do at Nectar.
The Bumbu Originals Scotland Finals was a different kind of challenge. Bumbu is a rum with a very specific flavour character, rich and deeply spiced, and building something around it that did not simply echo what the spirit already was required finding a direction that complemented without competing. The Successful First Date, our entry for that competition, reached the Scotland Finals. Getting to that stage in a national competition less than a year into opening was a result we were proud of, and one that confirmed that the approach we were taking behind the bar was being recognised by people whose opinion of cocktail craft we respect.
We have not won yet. That is the honest answer to the question people occasionally ask. But the trajectory is right and the learning from each competition has been genuine rather than incremental. The ambition is still there and it is more informed than it was when we started.
A menu that never quite finishes
Every three months we review the cocktail menu in full. Every month we run at least one special that operates as a live test: something new, served to real guests, with real feedback that either earns the drink a place on the permanent menu or sends it back to the drawing board.
This rhythm keeps the bar alive in a way that a static menu never could. It also means that regular guests have a reason to come back and see what has changed, and that the kitchen and the bar stay in conversation about how the food and drink menus evolve in relation to each other. The pairing suggestions on the food menu are not accidental. They are the result of Panos and Margarita working through combinations with the same rigour they apply to their individual disciplines.
The bacon fat-washed Deacon whisky cocktail is an example of how that process works in practice. Developed as a monthly special, the response from guests was immediate and consistent enough that it is now being considered for the next permanent menu iteration. Fat-washing, the process of introducing a fat into a spirit to transfer its flavour compounds before removing the fat through freezing and straining, is a technique that adds richness and savoury depth in a way that other methods cannot replicate. That it emerged from a monthly special rather than a planned menu decision is exactly how the best things on the menu tend to appear.
What this means for the guest
I am aware that describing cocktail technique in detail risks making the whole thing sound more complicated and less enjoyable than it actually is. The point of all of this is not the technique. The technique is invisible if it is working correctly.
The point is that when you sit down at the bar at Nectar and order the Drops of the River, or the Fizz n Fig, or the Beach Bonfire, you are drinking something that was thought about seriously long before it arrived in front of you. The flavours are integrated rather than assembled. The balance is deliberate rather than approximate. The experience of the drink unfolds in a way that a quickly built cocktail does not, because the preparation that went into it allows for that kind of depth.
If you want to understand how we think about the drinks, the best way is to sit at the bar and talk to Panos. He will tell you more than this article can, and he will tell it better.
But if you want to taste where we have got to so far, and where we are headed, the menu is the answer.
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 1pm, and Sunday from noon until 11pm. Monday closed.
