Recipes <\/p>\n
In<\/em> Person of Interest<\/em><\/a> we talk to the people catching our eye right now about what they\u2019re doing, eating, reading, and loving. Next up is Jae Bae<\/strong>, a New York\u2013based mixologist and influencer who draws inspiration from iconic international soups.<\/em><\/p>\n Like most kids plunging into a bowl of noodle soup, Korean American beverage influencer Jae Bae remembers slurping every last buckwheat strand from his mother\u2019s homemade naengmyeon, only to abandon the chilled, complex broth of beef stock, kimchi brine, sesame oil, and fresh pear. He chalks up the error in culinary judgement to the folly of youth.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother would warn me, \u2018The broth is the best part!\u2019\u201d recalls the now 28-year-old Queens, NY, native, who goes by @Jarbae<\/a> on Instagram. In early 2024, he started to wonder how naengmyeon would taste as a cocktail. Or Hong Kong egg tarts, even Mexican chilaquiles. Out of curiosity, he developed a video series in which he adapts nourishing Asian soups and other cozy dishes from around the world into their cocktail counterparts.<\/p>\n Drawing from classic cocktail techniques Bae picked up from a college stint at Boston\u2019s Hojoko Japanese Tavern\u2014plus intel from canonical reference texts like Liquid Intelligence<\/em> and The Flavor Thesaurus<\/em>\u2014he reimagines, for example, Vietnamese pho as an umami-rich margarita<\/a> of sous vide pho-spiced tequila and dashes of fish sauce.<\/p>\n \u201cThese dishes have been around forever, and I am not in any way trying to take credit for the flavors,\u201d says Bae, who works in public health by day, while his beverage pursuits, which include bartending pop-ups and consulting for liquor brands like Guilder\u2019s Gin<\/a> and Kokoro Tequila<\/a>, remain extracurricular. For now, his main mixology platform is on Instagram, where he broadcasts to 26,000 followers and counting.<\/p>\n The \u201cbright and comforting\u201d flavor of a sinigang sour<\/a> is an homage to the unofficial national dish of the Philippines, with a toasted-rice-water ice cube studded with halved cherry tomatoes and chopped red onion that melts into pork bouillon-washed tequila mixed with puckering tamarind syrup. And of course, Bae has atoned for a childhood of broth evasion with his savory naengmyeon martini, mixed with sesame-washed gin and pear-infused vermouth.<\/p>\n Bae\u2019s concoctions are as visually striking as they are inventive, catching the eye with juicy hues and quirky garnishes like a spoonful of boba<\/a> or a cleanly severed pear stem<\/a>. Producing his recipe videos from his tiny Astoria, Queens apartment kitchen, Bae takes care to include respectful gestures like phonetically attuned pronunciations and research on the cultural background of the inspiration dishes\u2014these drinks go beyond mere sentimental attachment.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople seem to feel so seen when I recreate their favorite foods, and I never want to take that for granted,\u201d he says. Bon App\u00e9tit speaks with Bae about how his musical training and science education inform his creative process, what it means to carve out space for cultural conversations, and how he engages his audiences with respect and curiosity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Jae Bae’s Sinigang cocktail, a savory ode to the famous Filipino tamarind-and-pork soup.<\/p>\n <\/span>Photo by Jae Bae<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n One of my idols in the beverage industry is Suwincha \u201cChacha\u201d Singsuwan<\/strong>, the beverage director at Bangkok Supper Club<\/a> in Manhattan, who just won a Michelin Guide New York Exceptional Cocktails award. Her drinks are somewhat inspired by Thai or Southeast Asian cuisine: the Fish Sauce includes ingredients like Napa cabbage broth, fish sauce, and fresh pear, while the Truffled Pandan is a concoction of truffle oil-washed gin and pandan syrup. To see an Asian-immigrant woman lead an award-winning beverage program with these kinds of flavors in a white-dominated space is so meaningful to me. [Based on recent data<\/a>, only about 4% of bartenders in the United States are Asian, while 65% are white.] After all, another Asian-immigrant woman, my own mother, first introduced these flavors to me. I finally feel like I can go to a bar where I can understand the cultural significance of the ingredients. I\u2019ve never had that experience before.<\/p>\n Growing up, I played the violin and wanted to be a classical violinist<\/strong>. Then in my senior year of high school, my mother had the typical immigrant conversation with me about what I needed to do to make money. So I went into the sciences. In the process, I almost forgot about my creative side. But now I\u2019m discovering how my love of music translates into artistry in other aspects of my life, and especially in the beverage space. I also like to sing, and I\u2019ve performed Korean love songs with Brooklyn\u2019s AAPI Jazz Collective<\/a>. Jazz or any music your practice can be like developing cocktails. I once created a potato-chip-and-caviar-inspired martini with a potato chip-infused vodka that was delicious and really did taste like chips. But then I decided to clarify vermouth with cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche [a classic accoutrement for caviar]. It tasted terrible, like sour cream champagne. What was I expecting? It was bad. It happens a lot more than successes. But I was also in the moment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n A boozy take on an Indian classic, filter coffee, made with chicory, whiskey and coffee liqueur.<\/p>\n <\/span>Photo by Jae Bae<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n One thing I like to remember is that the recipes aren’t just for me<\/strong>. At the end of my videos, I always ask for suggestions on soups or dishes to turn into cocktails. The Asian diaspora always chimes in, and as a result sinigang is still my most requested cocktail recipe. One ask was for a cocktail based on filter coffee from India, which is chicory root coffee with milk and sugar, very smoky and earthy. I had so many people in the comments say things like, \u201cI’m from South India. I drink this every morning. This is so cool to see.\u201d Without my voiceovers where I provide some cultural history of the inspiration dish, the line of appropriation could get hazy.<\/p>\n Not that there\u2019s anything wrong with a classic martini or margarita<\/strong>, but I just think there\u2019s room for different stories in the beverage space. Since everything is so crazy expensive right now, it\u2019s important to consider making these drink experiences worthwhile. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever run out of inspiration adapting Asian dishes, soups or not. Speaking for myself, I grew up around Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino, Indian and many other cuisines. I\u2019m always asking, \u201cWhat\u2019s this dish? How do you pronounce it? What are the ingredients?\u201d Having those experiences for as long as I can remember really shaped Jarbae, and how it provides an opportunity for me to give different cultures and their foods as much visibility as I possibly can.<\/p>\n Speed Round Questions with Jae Bae<\/p>\n Go-to drink at a new bar?<\/strong> Mezcal Negroni<\/p>\n What’s in? What’s out?<\/strong> What’s your favorite spirit?<\/strong> Undisputedly…mezcal<\/p>\n Do you have a go-to life hack or technique you’d like to share?<\/strong> Wrap your bottle of wine with a wet paper towel and stick it in the freezer horizontally. It’ll chill your bottle in 10 minutes and no weird shoving the bottle into a bowl of definitely not enough ice.<\/p>\n
IN:<\/strong> Savory cocktails (of course), overall bar vibe instead of over-the-top technical drinks, drinks at 7pm and home by 10pm.
OUT:<\/strong> No snack with my martini, a salt rim around the entire glass, music too loud to talk<\/p>\n