Nectar x Dalí's Recap: What Our First Bar Takeover in Zurich Was Really Like

Where to begin. This night meant a lot to me, and not only because I got to spend an evening with my childhood friend. I got to make drinks for myself and my entire childhood friend group, in the city where we all grew up, in a bar run by one of us.

I have already told you why Nectar went to Zurich. This is the story of what actually happened when we got there.

The thing I did not expect to be hard

It was surreal, and the difficulty was not the one I had prepared for. I had three jobs at the same time. I had to make drinks good enough to justify the trip. I had to spend time with my friends without disappearing from the bar. And I had to avoid spending the whole night with one friend group while the others watched from the other end of the room.

If you have ever hosted a party where you were also doing the cooking, you will recognise the feeling. You love everyone in the room, you want to talk to all of them, and the food is still on the stove.

I was nervous for a professional reason as well. Dalí's has standards, and its guests come for a particular experience. I wanted to make sure Dalí's still upheld everything it expects of itself, and that people got what they were looking for from the Dalí's experience. At the same time, we wanted to bring our own flair to the night.

The craziest thing is that both worked.

How the night felt

When people ask me how it went, I struggle to explain, so here is the closest comparison I have. Imagine one of those wild nights at Nectar in Edinburgh, where everyone is all over the place and talking to one another. Great vibes, great music, just a good night. We simply had that night in Zurich.

That is rare anywhere. It is rarer still in a bar that is not yours, with a menu that is not yours, in front of people who are a mix of old friends and strangers. The vibe of the evening was incredible, and everyone enjoyed themselves. I could not have asked for more.

How the trip went down

We travelled to Zurich on the Tuesday and went straight to Dalí's to prepare our cocktails. The evening was sponsored by three brands: Bumbu Rum, The Deacon Whisky and Thomas Henry, the mixer brand. If you want to know a little more about each of them, it is in the first article.

This trip is also the reason Panos and I could not make the Ben Lomond heat in Glasgow. I wrote about that in Ben Lomond: The Competition Heat Nectar Never Attended. Zurich had to be worth it, and it was.

The drinks

The cocktails we made were more than ones we already had on the menu. Every one of them was created specifically for the night.

The first was the Summer Memories, the drink that got me into the Bumbu Originals Only Final. That made it a natural fit for a night backed by Bumbu.

The second was the Bumbu Sunset. It combined Bumbu Original and Bumbu XO with a beetroot and coriander cordial, topped with Thomas Henry's Mystic Mango soda. Two different rums, an earthy cordial and a bright tropical soda.

The third was the Gardeners Salad. We combined The Deacon with Amaro Montenegro, tomato water and a bell pepper and oregano cordial. Yes, the ingredients read like a starter, and that savoury edge is exactly the point. It is a drink we might even add to our menu at Nectar, which tells you how we felt about it.

The last was a Greek Mountain Tea infusion of The Deacon, with rose bitters and Cherry Blossom Soda from Thomas Henry. Greek mountain tea is a herbal tea from Greece, and putting it into a Scotch whisky for a night in Zurich is the kind of idea that makes a takeover worth doing. Scotland, Greece and Germany in one glass.

The key thing about all four is that they were limited. Once a drink runs out, it is gone, and if you actually do run out, the bar shifts away from takeover and back to regular service. That is the honest shape of a takeover. You are not trying to serve everyone every drink. You are trying to give people something they could not get on any other night.

The prep you do not see

The ingredients for these drinks are quite complex, so we prepared everything from the night before. Cordials, infusions and tomato water do not like being rushed, and a problem you find at 8pm in someone else's bar is a hard one to fix. That is the main lesson from a first takeover. Do the work early, so the night itself is only about service.

After that, we got to go and enjoy the city.

The day of

The next day you arrive at the bar and set everything up the way you want it to run. We built our prep stations, walked through the processes, and then sat down to a family meal. In our case that was pizza from across the road.

I would not skip the family meal on a takeover. It is the moment where two teams start to feel like one, and the moment where you can look at each other and agree you are ready. It sounds small. It is not.

When the guests arrived

Then the guests started arriving, and we served our drinks. This is the part of a takeover that nobody warns you about. The regular menu is not available, so people need to be comfortable with the new drinks. Ours were super funky, and sometimes people were not willing to try them. That is fair. You walk into a bar you know, you want your usual, and someone hands you a beetroot and coriander rum drink.

Part of the job is to make the strange sound safe, without making it sound boring.

The blessing and the curse

For me, I knew most of the guests, so they wanted to spend time with me. It is a blessing and a curse at the same time. A blessing, because I was surrounded by people I have known for most of my life. A curse, because every conversation is time away from the bar. I imagine it would not be the same at a different takeover, or at least not on this scale. Most visiting bartenders arrive as strangers. I arrived as a local who had been away.

Luckily Panos was there to run the show at the bar, just like he usually does. He is the reason I could have those conversations without worrying about service.

The part I loved most

One of my favourite things about the night was how involved Bumbu were. The brand representative made his way up from Lausanne to join the event. He then walked around the room serving drinks to guests and explaining the history of the spirit to them, while they were already having other drinks made with it.

That is the best kind of brand support. It is not a banner on the wall. It is a person who knows the story and tells it at the right moment, to people who are already holding a glass. A drink tastes better when someone has told you where the spirit came from.

How the night ended

The night ended around 11pm, when cleaning started. Afterwards, everyone working there, and our friends, went out for drinks and a bit of a boogie.

A night to remember.

What a first takeover taught me

If you are thinking of doing one, here is what I would pass on. Prepare the complicated ingredients the day before. Keep the drinks limited, and say so. Make sure the whole team sits down to a meal together before the doors open. Bring a brand that shows up as people, not just as logos. And accept that the regular menu will not be there, so you need to be ready to explain your drinks to people who did not ask for them.

A takeover is not a holiday and it is not a party, however much it feels like one. It is service in another room, with someone else's guests, under someone else's name over the door. You owe the host bar your best behaviour, and that is worth remembering before you pack the bags. If you want the full explainer on how takeovers work, I have written it in What Is a Bar Takeover?

Back on Broughton Street

I went to Zurich to show my oldest friends what I had built. I came back thinking that Nectar is, among other things, a team that can pack its way of working into bags, carry it across a border, and make a room that is not ours feel like it is. That is the best result I could have hoped for from a first takeover.

If you want to taste the thinking behind those drinks, the home bar is on Broughton Street. For more on how we build drinks, How I Build a Cocktail for a Competition is a good place to start. When you are ready, book a table at Nectar Bar and ask us about the Gardeners Salad. We are still deciding whether it earns a place on the menu.

Tuesday to Thursday: 5pm to 11pm Friday: 5pm to 1am Saturday: 12pm to 1am Sunday: 5pm to 11pm Monday: Closed