Flask: Can You Find It?

Posted 2021-04-12 CityWeekendShanghai

Inside a perky sandwich shop on Shaanxi Nan Lu lies a vintage Coca Cola vending machine. Pull it open and you’ll find a doorway into the aesthetically slick cubby hole that is Flask, a craft cocktail bar with imaginative drinks by Bear Weng and Allen Hsu, the latter formerly of Lab.

The sandwich shop, called The Press, is just a front at the moment, but the owners plan to make it functional and start serving up grilled cheese sandwiches by late November. It will stay open until 2AM, offering a haven of melty dairy for Flask drinkers to emerge into and indulge in.

On the other side of the Coke machine-door, Flask's overall theme is sort of Asian speakeasy of the future. The drinks menu is split into eyeroll-worthy sections named “Ladies” and “Gents,” all priced at RMB90. Each drink boasts an experimental mix of flavors and obscure Chinese ingredients.

Visuals and presentation are key, as in the Prohibition Party from the "Ladies" section. It's a fairly stiff mix of gin, yellow Chartreuse and Kentucky IPA, but the fact that it's served in a tea cup dotted with cherry blossoms and a flower garnish makes it painfully appropriate for the girls' side of the menu.

Prohibition Party

The Eric Manhattan, from “Gents,” is a mix of rye and vermouth with bitters, jujube and osmanthus. It tastes like a cigar, for better or worse, and looks elegant in a coupette with a Luxardo cherry garnish.

A third cocktail section called "Prohibition Classics" (all RMB80) rounds out the menu and includes the Monkey Gland, which is dated 1920 and which is the one drink from Flask that we unequivocally did not like.

That may be blamed on the original recipe of gin, grenadine, orange juice and absinthe (the Ancient Greeks used licorice to freshen their breath after all, and we find mixing absinthe with orange juice a very distant flavor relation to drinking orange juice right after brushing your teeth). At least it has a great back story.

Other cocktails, while not inciting immediate delight, lingered in the mind. A drink called Taiwan Plum Soup from the “Ladies” section is served beautifully in a wooden cup and saucer. It's made of rum, plum liqueur, osmanthus wine and “infused dragon,” the bartender’s secret syrup of longan fruit (aka dragon eye) and cassia wine. A friend hated the tangy plum salt lining the rim, but we found it strangely intriguing.

Taiwan Plum Soup

We predict that most of Flask's menu will inspire similarly disparate opinions from drinker to drinker, but it’s worth heading over to test and discuss.

OUR RATING: 3/5 Stars

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