Cocktails Of Our Times

Vijay Mudaliar is saving the world, one cocktail at a time

- Andrew Leci

It is a fairly normal Thursday afternoon as I sit at a table made of mushrooms, drinking cactus juice. My companion is Vijay Mudaliar, a tall, lean gentleman with empathic eyes, an angular visage and what I suspect is a permanent five o’clock shadow on a clean-shaven face. He has great teeth, by the way, and it isn’t difficult to make him break out into a wide smile.

Mudaliar, the multi-award-winning mixologist who owns Native bar, seems very comfortable, not only with himself, but also in the surroundings he has created in his latest venture, Analogue. I’d love to chew the fat with him but it’s tricky in his new restaurant concept as there isn’t any. The menu is 100 per cent plant-based—both food and drinks—and before all you omnivores start heading for the Aberdeen Angus-populated hills, it’s worth listening to what he has to say, while drinking cactus, prickly pear and mezcal, naturally.