Sip on the moods and smells of a city

A bar in Bengaluru is serving a limited menu that reinterprets the scents of the city as cocktails

- Shrabonti Bagchi

You can see that the servers at Soka are fully invested in its complex new limited menu inspired by the scents of Bengaluru. At each table of the intimate 38-seater bar, servers take guests through the details of the five cocktails in the menu, Vasané, which positions itself as an "olfactory archive of Bengaluru".

The first drink that arrives is "Strictly Couples", a tall glass of smoky light-green fluid with a generous amount of chili salt rim, accompanied by a small cloche. "Take off the cloche and inhale the smell under the dome quickly," instructs the server. I take a whiff and the sharp smell of freshly cut grass wafts up. The cocktail itself is cucumber-forward, made of Patron Silver tequila, orange liqueur, jalapeños, clarified cucumber, chili tincture, and tonic. It was inspired by the city's iconic Cubbon Park, and is an interpretation of its distinct scent identity.