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Known as “the Asian vanilla,” the blade-like leaves of Pandan add brilliant green color and seductive aroma to curries, cakes, and even better, cocktails.

Singapore’s flush with sexy, singular hotels, but the vertical ascension of its skyline on this land-poor nation-state has led to a dizzying effect. Finding low-rise hotels, especially in meticulously restored heritage buildings, seems near impossible. Yet, The Warehouse Hotel, located on the bank of the Singapore River in Robertson Quay, offers exactly that—a historic façade housing an expansive and contemporary lobby and bar inside, replete with an excellent cocktail bar.

After strolling the river on a hot May day, I fled for the cool dark interior of The Warehouse Hotel and grabbed a seat at the lobby bar. I’d just returned from Indonesia (and Vietnam a month earlier), where I’d sucked down a few pandan-infused drinks, so I asked the bartender if he had a cocktail with this regional ingredient in mind.

“Not at the moment, and I personally think it’s become overused in drinks; however, people love it,” said bar manager Jae Min.

“Well, we rarely see it in the United States,” I replied. He paused, and said, “give me a range of flavors you like, and we’ll put something together.”

I rattled off a few notes like sour and citrus, floral, and creamy, perhaps thinking subconsciously about a Peruvian pisco sour.

Min pulled a few bottles from behind the bar and got to work, pouring, dry shaking, wet shaking, fine straining, and finally presenting me with a muted pea-green cocktail with a creamy trim.

“This is off the menu, but it’s a drink we’ve been working on behind the bar,” he said, nodding at his part-time colleague Ron Ong who was the brainchild behind the recipe. Ong, who has worked at some of the finest bars in Sydney, Australia, took inspiration from the Hotel Georgia Cocktail, a classic believed to have been created in the mid-1940s. The team plans to call it The Warehouse Hotel Special as a tribute.

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I took a sip, immediately imagining a pandan version of a pisco sour. It was smooth, complex, creamy, a little nutty, and tasted of that grassy vanilla flavor I’d come to love in my recent travels.

“Outstanding,” I said. I asked for the recipe but lamented to Min the lack of access I had to fresh pandan in the United States. Min said pandan concentrate, easily found at nearly every food store in Singapore, might be available online. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to shop for concentrate on my travels, so I searched and found quite a few options on Amazon.

As for the recipe, here ya go. Happy shaking and sipping.

Pandan Sour or The Warehouse Hotel Special

Ingredients

3 Drops of Pandan Concentrate*

30 ml Egg White

25 ml Lemon

15 ml Orgeat

5 ml Caramel

60 ml Gin

Recipe

Add all ingredients into a shaker. First dry shake* to emulsify the egg white. Add ice, then wet shake. Fine strain into a coupe glass and serve.

Pandan Concentrate: Common to Asian food stores, one can make it at home by steeping the leaves in simple syrup, though it’s far easier to buy the concentrate online. Amazon sells a few options.

Dry shake: Dry shaking is the technique used to get egg white cocktails to froth. Shake the egg white with all the other cocktail ingredients without ice to allow the mixture to combine without dilution.

The Warehouse Hotel, 320 Havelock Rd, Singapore 169628

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