Note: Case Study is now closed.
Case Study at APW Bangsar is one of the most exciting and inventive cocktail bars to open in KL lately. For one, the space looks like a greenhouse, and as an extension of that, the cocktails are botanical. Much of the potted herbs you see as decorations at the bar become the actual ingredients in your drink, either pickled, dehydrated, muddled or used in syrups, preserves and infusions. This does seem like a promising evolution from the Asian-inspired cocktail trend that’s prevalent last year.
The cocktails are bold and playful in their choice of ingredients, and hence resulting in fascinating flavours. Some of the cocktails even border on experimental, which we love. Each cocktail is named after the type of cup or receptacle that it’s served in. And to help you choose, the menu (hand-drawn to resemble a botanist’s sketch pad, naturally) offers taste profiles such as sweet, sour, tropical, viscous, smokey, savoury, nutty, earthy, peppery and more – bet you didn’t know cocktails can be this complex. It is ultimately a very fun place to drink and at the same time explore new and unusual ingredients and flavours.
One of the standouts include the fruity and purple-hued Terrarium cocktail (served in a glass globe), which is made with sweet potato, egg white, lotus root gin, lemon, butterfly pea and apricot infusion, and Indian borage (or Mexican mint). If you like a kick of heat and spice in your drink, go for the refreshing Copper Mug: ginger carrot soda, root beer reduction, lime, Mediterranean gin, lime and Becherovka, a Czech herbal liqueur.
Our advice? Don’t be alarmed when you see ingredients like curry yoghurt, tamarind and jaggery chutney, cream cheese, salted wildflower honey and the like. You need to trust Case Study’s bartender duo, Alvin AuYong and Joel Poon – they sure know their stuff.
