During the summer, when it‘s hottest, we reach for light refreshments: chilled coffees with milk, homemade iced teas, light wines, and airy cocktails. Lighter lagers, pilsners, and other refreshing beers that quench thirst well and help deal with the heat of the city asphalt are also often chosen.
For a while, we focused on finding the best cold coffee with milk, which we wrote about and you can read at this link. Over time, however, we craved a new drink of the summer, while our spring drink was iced tea from Express Bar. We even got the recipe for it, and you can find it here.
Cocktails can be expensive for frequent enjoyment, so it‘s a special pleasure when you find something top-notch and affordable for everyday life. At the beginning of June, we discovered our favorite – the famous Passion Fruit Daiquiri from Express Bar (€7.8), a signature cocktail by bartender and owner Ivan Leko. We‘ve written about Ivan Leko and his contribution to the Zagreb, and even Croatian, bar scene several times.
We recently talked to him about this cocktail, and he told us that the classic daiquiri was always too sweet for him, so he looked for a fresher and better-balanced alternative. During his research, he came across a passion fruit variant, and he was especially attracted to the texture and fullness of cocktails with egg white, although he didn‘t like the taste of eggs, their perishability, and the waste of ingredients.
That‘s why he decided to create a rich, creamy texture without using eggs. The foam and final texture were developed at the bar for a long time: the cocktail was first made without foam, then they tested various foams through about fifty versions, until they perfected today‘s milkwash version, clean, creamy, and seductively precise.
Passion Fruit Daiquiri from Express Bar is made, therefore, with an interesting milkwash method – this means the finished cocktail is poured into milk with added acid, during which casein (milk protein) binds tannins and polyphenols that bring bitterness, so everything stays on the filter, and the drink becomes clear and silky. The mixture curdles for at least four hours, ideally overnight, so the resulting clarified liquid can wait ready to be served for up to 48 hours, perfectly stable and always equally smooth.
But the whole magic of this cocktail lies in the transformation brought by the special Veritas rum, whose tropical character, notes of fresh banana, pineapple, and a light spicy base give the cocktail complexity. Combined with the intense, vibrant passion fruit, the cocktail becomes explosively aromatic and juicy, with a rich creaminess offered by the milkwash texture. Every sip is full of freshness, rounded acidity, and fruity character, while Veritas rounds out into a long, elegant finish. Devilishly seductive and creamy cocktail.
Although summer is slowly coming to an end, the warmest recommendation is to try this cocktail. Express Bar and Leko once again confirm the continuity started in 2013 - from Petrinjska, since then, they have systematically raised the bar of Zagreb‘s bar offer from coffee to cocktails. All this is still led and signed by his established team, whose signature approach and precise execution remain at the very top of the city‘s bar scene, and beyond.
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