Sustainability and craft go hand-in-hand for BOCA Dubai mixologist Kornelija Skrinskyte

On a stormy evening in Bengaluru, as the rains lashed BANG, the rooftop bar at The Ritz-Carlton, and the city’s lights simmered through the downpour, Kornelija Skrinskyte took over the bar with quiet confidence and inventive flair. The Lithuania-born mixologist, representing BOCA, Dubai, a Michelin Green Star restaurant known for its commitment to sustainability and responsible practices, brought her personality and purpose to her craft.

Kornelija’s cocktails introduced BOCA’s ethos of conscious mixology, blending locally sourced ingredients such as raw mango, tomatoes, fresh strawberries, local lime, and single-estate coffee to create some mind-bending cocktails such as Dirty Cauliflower Martini, which uses marinade from the cauliflower to produce a pungent and complex drink.

“What we usually do at BOCA is we source tomatoes locally and give the leftovers to the kitchen. The kitchen and the bar are one identity, and we try to showcase it,” Kornelija, the assistant bar manager at BOCA Dubai, tells YS Life.

Kornelija mirrors BOCA’s philosophy of adapting and making the most out of available resources. In Dubai, the team created cocktails out of locally sourced ingredients such as khansour (succulent), shih (wormwood), and black lime. In Bengaluru, she continued that ethos by visiting the KR market with her team to fetch local ingredients.

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“Some of us in the industry even go overseas looking for unique ingredients, but don’t see what’s next door. I was allowed to go to the kitchen and find something interesting,” she notes.

Her journey with sustainability started long before she joined BOCA last year. She recollects participating in Campri Red Hands 2023, where she was challenged to create a cocktail using neglected botanicals.

“I took inspiration from my background when I grew up in Plungė, Lithuania, and we would use some botanicals for home-based medicines. I was allergic to some of the medicines back then so my mom would create homemade medicines,” Kornelija recalls.

“I won the competition, but the competition wasn’t about winning, it was about realising who I am, shaping my personality as a bartender,” she adds.

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Kornelija quips that bartenders often prefer sticking to beers over cocktails after work. That’s because their work involves measuring the complex balance of people, places, and food pairings.

“I create drinks for people, not for me. It’s me, my team’s, and the restaurant’s personality expressed. I always look at the crowd but also the range,” she explains.

BOCA Dubai's signature is perhaps best reflected in the Strawberry & Rosemary cocktail, which elegantly combines Bombay Sapphire Premier Cru and bergamot liqueur with clarified tomato water, sprinkled with strawberries and rosemary dusting. Or consider Date with Destiny, where she fuses flavours from both Dubai and Bengaluru, featuring regionally sourced Middle Eastern dates and single-estate coffee, thoughtfully mixed with Aberfeldy 12 as its base.

Interestingly, BOCA and BANG have been eager to promote their zero-ABV concoctions. Tomato Tea Spritz is designed as a mid-day refresher that layers clarified tomatoes over single-origin Assam tea, serving as a refreshing palate cleanser. But every innovation factors in sustainability.

“We started investigating where the tea is coming from and who were the farmers farming it. We started partnering with brands that showed they were treating the farmers right,” narrates Shiv Menon, Head of Operations and Head of Wines & Beverage at BOCA. “A lot of British companies started bringing sparkling teas in the Dubai market, and now many Michelin-starred restaurants have it as a pairing.”

For Kornelija, a lot of learning has been hands-on, right from when she was waiting tables in Copenhagen. But she was enamoured by the culinary artistry on exhibit in Denmark’s capital, also known as the gourmet capital of the world, and subsequently moved to bartending. For eight years, she worked across establishments in the city, being leased out for dinner rush at one place to luncheons at another. This mixing for the mixologist sowed the seeds of curiosity.

“This is the Bible that I always carry with me,” she says, taking out a black, almost mini-dictionary-like notebook. “Most often I don’t remember the exact ratios. When I worked in Copenhagen, I was always keen to experiment with a lot of things … there was a lot of pressure to be at the top of your game.”

She initially didn’t understand umami flavours, but started experimenting with vegetables in her drinks in an effort to stand out. Her most challenging ingredient has been the humble fig, whose flavour she tried to enhance by blending it with yeast, giving the cocktail an eggy consistency. “Technically, you can take anything from around you and extract something from it; it depends on how it’s preserved,” she notes.

However, playing with fermentation at BOCA, Dubai has been a challenge given the city’s strict regulations. Kornelija still feels that is now an emerging trend, and cocktails are going back to the classics.

“To understand fermentation and punch, one has to go back to the roots that a cocktail needs to have water, bitters, and sweet and sour balance. A lot is about blending and emotional touch,” she adds.

Learning, for her, is an ongoing journey. With takeovers like BANG, where she also held a masterclass, she aims not only to absorb insights from each new location, but also to share her experience in crafting a brand within a brand, and establishing a distinct identity for bars from their parent restaurants, all while ensuring sustainability.

“As a professional, when you move through venues, you bring a piece with you and that’s how you grow,” Kornelija signs off.

(The copy was updated with clarifications.)