Who is the head bartender of the sixth best bar in the world?
Double Chicken Please is the sixth best bar according to the choice “The world’s 50 best bars” in 2022. And the head bartender of that bar is our interlocutor, Ben Yabrow. Our main lecturer, Filip, had the opportunity to talk with him at the Bar Convent Berlin. After working in various bars in the United States and Asia, Ben found his place at Double Chicken Please. There he worked with its founders GN Chan and Faye Chen. Together, they create innovative and interesting cocktails that are inspired, no less than food.
You can read what he thinks about the future of the world of cocktails and bartending, what is his favorite cocktail and how the name Double Chicken Please came about in a short conversation with him.
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OK, First things first, who is Ben Yabrow actually.
My name is Ben Yabrow. I’m the head bartender at Double Chicken Please.
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And whose fault is it for the Double Chicken name?
It’s a long story, but GN, one of our cofounders, and his best friend, their nicknames are both related to chicken, so it kind of formed through that. Originally, it was going to be a design studio, but now it works as a bar.
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Best bar in New York? How about that?
Uh, it was a big shock. None of us were expecting to place where we did in the world’s 50 best, but we’re extremely gracious and humble from all the all the praise.
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What type of cocktails do you serve? I suppose signature, but is there any more special story to that?
Yeah, of course. So there are two different rooms at Double Chicken Please. The front room, all of our cocktails are on tap. And then, in the back room, all of our cocktails are going to be inspired by classic food dishes.
So we have drinks like Japanese cold noodles, Key Lime Pie, called pizza, French toast and the likes.
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Easy tap cocktails. The future, maybe.
I don’t know. I think, I think having a little bit of say over the cocktail is something that guests enjoy. But I do think you’ll start seeing more and more cocktails that can be delivered in a shorter amount of time, whether they’re on tap or RTD’s. Things like that I do think will start becoming more available in a lot of bars.
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What do American people or American pellets like the most? Bitter, sweet or combined together?
Um, it’s kind of a, it’s a pretty broad range. I mean Americans, I think, typically expect a stronger drink. And they like, I think, a lot of loud flavors. So, if you go to Japan, the cocktails, the same cocktail there will be much lower in alcohol and more delicate, as in the US you’ll have more alcohol and like, say like this sugar and this the acid will be, I’d say stretch to kind of give it like a broader mouthfeel.
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What is your favorite drink or cocktail?
In the world. Probably a daiquiri, yeah.
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The proportions for your perfect daiquiri will be…
The way we do it at Double Chicken Please is going to be: 50 mils of white rum, 20 mils of fresh lime, and then 15 mils of rich syrup. But our rich syrup is actually 1.75 to 1 instead of 2.12 to 1.
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And the last question, have you ever been to Croatia?
I haven’t and I’d love to go there.
Ben, thank you so much for
