Your Hong Kong weekend drinks guide for September 26-28

Even though this week has been all about negronis, the spirit of celebrating, well, other spirits, is still alive and well this weekend. On Friday, head to The Upper House to try cocktails made from a small batch family recipe centring on fernet from Austria. Avoca hosts this year’s Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award winner and Asia’s 65th best bar, while Wing Lei Bar launches a new menu inspired by its interactions with the region’s best and brightest.

What: There are few sweeter ways to start your weekend than with bitters – with a bitter fernet, specifically. Raphael Holzer, the younger half of a father-son duo who co-founded Holzer Original in 2016, takes over Green Room at The Upper House to serve signature craft cocktails using Holzer Original, a revived family recipe now produced as a small batch fernet using botanicals near the Holzer hometown of Brunnwald, Austria.

What: Sora, Asia’s 65th best bar and the winner of this year’s Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award, will take over Avoca at the Mondrian this weekend. Based at the Rosewood Phnom Penh in Cambodia, Jonas Vittur and Phirun Lek bring intricate local flavours to their cocktails. The Gumiho, for instance, comprises shochu, dry gin, sesame, lemon, tonkotsu syrup and soda; while the Num Ansom Knor is a riff on the negroni that uses coconut-infused gin, jackfruit-infused vermouth, Campari and Cambodian soy sauce.