- Name: Shatbhi Basu
- Instagram: @shatbhi
- Industry Experience: 46 years
- Favourite Drink: She keeps changing her favourite alcoholic drink based on what she’s experimenting with. Right now, she likes a fresh cucumber picante.
- Favourite Non-Alcoholic Drink: Coconut water
The year was 1980. A freshly graduated Shatbhi Basu was working at the Centaur Hotel at Santacruz airport with dreams of becoming a Chinese chef. She quit the job after 9-10 months when it became apparent to her that they were never going to transfer her to their Asian kitchen. Basu, armed with the hope of practicing her wok skills, joined a standalone Chinese restaurant. Unfortunately, she was asked to work the floor rather than step foot in the kitchen. But that is when fate stepped in and changed her path forever.
The manager asked her to oversee the bar. Shatbhi didn’t know much about bartending back then—she only knew basic cocktails that she’d learned during her hotel management course. She thought she could handle it. But in walked in an expat and ordered a martini. Panic-stricken, Shatbhi thought on her feet and asked all the right questions—whether he wanted a dry, medium or sweet martini, and if he’d like it with gin and vodka. When she went to make the drink, regrettably, there was no vermouth.
Quick-witted Shatbhi again thought on her feet and used a cunning concoction of white wine, and an extra measure of gin stirred with a stirrer dipped in Cinzano aperitivo. She sent the drink expecting a rebuttal but was surprised to note that he not only liked the taste of it but ordered another. This incident acted as a turning point in her life, prompting her to go home and read Trader Vic’s Bartender’s Guide.
And so was born India’s first female bartender.
Shatbhi entered the bartending industry when there were few formal structures. She honed her craft by focusing on 4 things—1. Understanding all the spirits 2. Focusing on her technique on how to use ice while mixing drinks 3. Adapting standard recipes to ingredients that were easily available in India 4. Buying a book once a month that would help her learn more about individual spirits.
Every time she made a drink, she’d write it down. This helped her when she started creating small menus with adapted recipes using fresh fruits that were readily available in India. The diary became her Bible. The more she read, the more her Bible kept getting updated with new recipes and techniques.
Shatbhi also enthusiastically talks about STIR Academy of Bartending — an idea born after the birth of her daughter when she needed to take a break to look after her. By then she had accumulated a wealth of knowledge and experience. There were no bar schools back in 1997. Realising that bar schools in the West had a syllabus that would not work in India due to the low exposure most people had back then to a bar and alcohol in general, she started from scratch.
She included an education on what a bar is, the constituents of a bar, the equipment used to run it, the spirits and non-alcoholic drinks stocked in it, etc. The syllabus included the meaning of words like fermentation, distillation, steeping, taste profiles, category of spirits — all given to them in a language they could easily understand.
She even put cocktails in families and groups to help young minds understand them better. The first few batches of students taught her as much as she taught them: She learnt new things and expanded her own knowledge when they asked questions.
Just like she stumbled upon bartending by pure accident, Shatbhi became a writer for Midday when an article on wine that appeared in a Saturday edition of a newspaper ticked her off as it was too condescending. She pitched writing about wine and spirits in a better light to the Midday editor. They liked the samples she sent across by “fax” and offered her a double spread twice a month on Sundays.
Author, teacher, bartender and mother—She had done it all. What did the decades of being in the mixology business teach this humble veteran? It had taught her to rely on her gut instinct, to keep working on whatever opportunities she got, and to keep growing and evolving.
Shatbhi had also worked tirelessly to change the mindsets of people who believed they didn’t need a trained bartender. She designed bars back when they worked exactly like kitchens. She worked with large brands to help bartenders understand them better and how to use them in their drinks.
“I think sometimes I didn’t think of it as business,” Basu explains while talking about all the business opportunities she seized in her decades-long career, “I didn’t think about making money from it. I did it because an instinct kicked in that told me that it needed to be done.”
She’s trained many young bartenders and is happy to see the evolution in the industry. The only thing she advises is that they should appreciate all the opportunities given to them now. Bartenders who work hard consistently, absorb all the knowledge coming their way, and ask pertinent questions are, in Shatbhi’s opinion, the ones who build highly successful careers.
She’s also very supportive in helping people garner the tools necessary to be budding bartenders in the industry. “Most people who know me know that I’m pretty easy to get access to and ask questions,” she asserts, “I’m always ready to help.”
Shatbhi might be a seasoned expert in her field but she’s constantly updating herself on her knowledge, techniques, and trends around the world. This is how the pro mixologist stays relevant and valuable in the fast-paced, ever-changing landscape of the hospitality industry. “If you are not current, if you don’t keep updating by reading, studying and keeping track of what is happening in the world, then you become irrelevant,” she reveals. Keeping track of the right social media accounts these days is equally important.
If author, bartender, brand developer, consultant and educator were not enough, Shatbhi is a true jack-of-all-trades. She also insists that Jack has always been underrated! We are capable of being great at more than one thing and everyone should explore themselves to find their hidden talents. The master mixologist also enjoys cooking, worked in advertising for 2.5 years, studied drawing caricatures, wrote a script for a TV show at NDTV Good Times, and had set her sights in jewellery designing. “I think [the] creative process is something that we should never stop [fostering], irrespective of whether you will ever finally put them into fruition or not,” she suggests, illuminating the reason for being able to juggle so any roles in her fulfilling life, “But the fact that you use your brain all the time to think creatively in any way [is important], irrespective of what it is.”
Before closing the interview, we asked Shatbhi what advice she’d dole out to aspiring bartenders and owners today. “For bar owners, I’d say take better care of your team. Give them a little more room to play in the way they work, and make sure your female bartenders get home safe,” she answers. And definitely give them better staff rooms and good food.
The consummate industry legend gave some sound guidance to up-and-coming mixologists, “It upsets me when bartenders look down on customers when they are asked for a drink that they don’t want to make because they think it’s beneath them to make these drinks,” she vocalises, “They seem to forget that the only reason they are standing behind the bar is that those drinks existed and those drinks were the ones that made bars, who made bartenders and who made people come to bars.”
Shatbhi urged people to create menus for customers, not competitions alone. “A lot of menus today are meant more for impressing peers and impressing bar owners, bar competitions, being in 30 best, 50 best, 100 best, Asia’s best, world’s best,” she warns, “I’m not saying that isn’t important. It is in today’s fast-paced competitive world. It certainly is. But customers and their palate must always come first. Scientists behind the bar are great. But let’s not forget to be fun. Don’t lose the soul of a bar.”
If not bartending, what would she do? “At one point of time I wanted to be a singer with a band. Before that I wanted to be a vet. And before that a chef. Now I’m happy to let my imagination run free to see what pops next!”
- Written by Nemisha Sharma
