Founded in 2018, Brass Lion’s flagship expression is its Singaporean Dry Gin. — Photos: MICHAEL CHEANG/The Star
During a previous trip to Singapore for the World’s 50 Best Bars awards ceremony, I got the opportunity to visit two Singaporean spirit producers that are making spirits unique to the Lion City – Brass Lion and Compendium Spirits.
Both of these companies manage to do one thing very well – utilise local and Asian flavours and ingredients to make uniquely local, high quality spirits.
While both are small enough to be considered producers of craft and artisanal spirits, their products are on par with some of the bigger international brands out there.
Brass Lion Distillery was one place I was really looking forward to visit during that trip to Singapore. While they are best known for their gins, I was actually most excited about their whisky, the first single malt produced in Singapore, which they’d released just a couple of months before that my trip (more on this later).
Although Brass Lion officially opened in 2018, the idea for a Singaporean gin had already been on founder Jamie Koh’s mind since 2012. Back then, she was already a serial F&B entrepreneur who had a couple of successful businesses in Singapore.
However, after taking a one-year break backpacking around the United States and Europe, Koh was inspired to create her own Singaporean spirit, and decided to enroll herself into in distilling school in the US.
Brass Lion has an imressive number of gins in its portfolio.
From there, it took a six-year journey that included “touring, interning and apprenticing at distilleries from Portland to South Carolina in the US, to London and Germany’s Black Forest” before she finally returned to Singapore and started Brass Lion Distillery.
The first thing you think when you get there is: “It’s smaller than I expected.” Well, it is a small craft distillery after all, and even its stills are small compared to more industrial-sized distilleries.
Our tour was conducted by Koh herself, and covered the entirety of the distillery, including a look at the stills, the Brass Lion Gin School (which lets you craft your own bottle of gin), before ending at their Tasting Room, where we got to try a few of their gins.
Brass Lion Distillery founder Jamie Koh.
While the botanicals used in their gins may seem familiar to most Malaysians and Singapo-reans (bunga kantan, lemongrass, asam, butterfly pea flower, etc), one thing Brass Lion does well is balancing these ingredients nicely so not one botanical is dominant, nor overpowers the juniper.
The flagship Singapore Dry Gin is the perfect example of this. It has bunga kantan (torch ginger) and lemongrass in it, but remains a quintessential dry gin, with the Asian flavours merely supporting the main character, the juniper.
While the colour-changing Butterfly Pea Gin was a little gimmicky and floral for me, I did like the sweet tea notes of the Pearl Jasmine Gin. I don’t usually fancy tea gins, but this one was pretty good.
Brass Lion recently launched Singapore’s first ever single malt whisky.
The highlight of the visit for me, however, was finally getting a taste of Brass Lion Single Malt Whisky, Singapore’s first ever single malt whisky (meaning it was distilled, barrelled and aged entirely on the island).
On the nose, it’s floral and fruity, with waves of vanilla and hints of citrus. It’s very easy on the palate, with again, lots of the fruity vanilla notes you’d expect from an ex-bourbon cask (they only did a single cask, aged for over three years). On the finish, more sweet fruits and vanilla there, medium-short, but still satisfyingly tasty.
There really is no doubt that this is a bona fide single malt whisky, and one that genuinely says a lot about Brass Lion’s distilling craftsmanship. Their gins were already quite good, but this whisky is an even more impressive flex for the Singaporean distillery. Here’s hoping there will be more to come and that it would make it to Malaysia too!
The definition of “compendium” according to the Cambridge dictionary is “a short but complete account of a particular subject, especially in the form of a book”.
It may not seem like a word one would use to describe a brand of spirits and liqueurs, but for Singapore brand Compendium Spirits, the word has a much deeper meaning than that.
During my trip, I visited Anthology, which is Compendium’s flagship store/bar/events space, and try the brand’s range of Singapore-made spirits and liqueurs.
The story of the company is pretty interesting. It started out making mead, then began experimenting with distilling said mead into various spirits. This led to them creating a “compendium” of recipes using spirits made from a few different ingredients.
Compendium Spirits started out with making mead, then began experimenting with distilling said mead into various spirits.
The honey-based one is made with wildflower honey from Thailand. The gula melaka is sourced from Indonesia, molasses from Malaysia sugarcane, and rice from Thailand. From there, they went on to making their own gin, and then rum, vodka, rice-based single grain whisky, liqueur, and even arrack and soju.
While the flavours in their two gins are pretty familiar, especially to Malaysians and Singapo-reans, what really set them apart is the base spirit used for each gin.
The Rojak Gin is made with a base of honey mead, double distilled with juniper and bunga kantan, and the mead-derived base spirit gives the gin a sweeter and more honey-like backdrop for the kantan and juniper notes to lean on.
The Chendol Gin is gula melaka-based, distilled with dried coconut and pandan. The pandan and coconut is quite prominent, with just a hint of juniper at the back.
Compendium’s Rojak Gin melds the distinct flavours of Torch Ginger with a base spirit distilled from mead.
The Home Mali Single Grain Rice Whisky was another interesting one. Before sampling the whisky, we had a bit of the fermented wine made from Hom Mali rice from Thailand, which tasted a little like Korean Makgeolli to be honest.
But the American-oak aged whisky is quite different - the rice notes are there, but also dark fruits, caramel and vanilla, which makes for quite a unique dram. The cask-strength expression is even better though, richer and creamier on the palate, thanks to the impressive 68% ABV.
That jasmine rice note from the rice is much more prominent, and makes for quite a savoury yet rich dark fruit-y dram that goes surprisingly well neat but opens up with a single cube of ice.
The cask-strength expression of the whiskey is richer and creamier on the palate, thanks to the impressive 68% ABV.
Other highlights from the other spirits I tried were the rums (Blanco, Spiced and Dark) made with molasses from Malaysian sugarcane and aged in virgin French oak casks; and surprisingly, the soju, which brought out the flavours of Ondeh Ondeh, Pineapple Tart and Bandung very nicely.
If you’re looking for a Singaporean-made spirit that is unique yet familiar at the same time, Compendium Spirits is your probably best bet.
Michael Cheang wonders if there will ever be a distillery in Malaysia that makes proper spirits, and not just compounded hard liquor. Follow him on Facebook (FB.com/MyTipsyTurvy) and Instagram (@MyTipsyTurvy).
