By Leigh O’Connor.
Meet Priscilla Leong – who in 2022 was regarded as ‘Australia’s Best Bartender’ – she can’t drink her creations because she is allergic to alcohol!
You’ll find Priscilla creating experimental cocktails using native ingredients at LANDMARK by Lexus pavilion at this year’s Melbourne Cup at Flemington on Tuesday, November 7 as a collaborator for Lexus.
Drawing inspiration from its Japanese origins and rethinking the meaning of luxury and elegance, the three-storey pavilion, LANDMARK will showcase the best from the fields of culinary, design and entertainment underpinned by Japanese hospitality and unrivalled views of the racecourse front straight.
Working at some of the most respected bars in Australia and Singapore, Priscilla has also built her own bar and beverage consultancy, The Flowing Bowl, with her partner Paul Hammond all without actually drinking the cocktails that have made her a leading light among mixologists.
This is how it went down…on her 18th birthday, friends bought a round of tequila shots and all of a sudden Priscilla was throwing up, asphyxiating and her friends had to take her to hospital to get her stomach pumped.
"I am allergic and get an anaphylactic reaction when a certain amount of alcohol is consumed, so I have to be very careful when tasting anything alcoholic; but it doesn’t mean I can’t taste,” she explains.
"It just makes me more hypersensitive to flavours and aromas and I love the diverse flavours that spirits, wine, beer and cocktails can achieve.”
Priscilla loves working with flavours that are often misunderstood, under-rated or challenging to work with, particularly ones that bring a savoury element to a cocktail.
"There’s so much reward in being able to reframe or change somebody’s mind about an ingredient they previously may not have enjoyed by presenting it to them in a different way. I have used ingredients like Chinese bak kwa or shiitake mushrooms in my drinks in the past, but my approach to creating is based on my approach to hospitality.
"The aim is always to try to create cocktails that are accessible to as many people as possible with some subtle surprises and a touch of personalisation through nostalgia or time and place.”
At LANDMARK by Lexus, Priscilla aims to highlight the ‘Close to the Source’ theme by using Victorian produce, with a focus on seasonality and locality; fusing together the best artisanal products of the surrounding region with nostalgic influences of Japanese culture and tradition.
Some of the specific Australian native ingredients she’ll be using are strawberry gum, Davidson plum and lemon myrtle.
"We’ll also be focusing on some other amazing local and seasonal produce like yuzu which has been made into a yuzucello grown in the Ovens Valley, a wonderfully savoury and almost medicinal ribbon gum honey from Beechworth, decadent Jersey milk from a Gippsland dairy collective and a blueberry Moscato from Badger’s Creek in the Yarra Valley.”
To find out more, click here.
