The name Barules comes from the joke that Sam Kuan, the founder of the bar, joked about the drinkers, Barules is Bar rules, and there are two rules here: "Rule 1: The bartender is always right; Rule 2: If the bartender is wrong, follow Rule 1", this humorous rule also conveys to customers the business philosophy of "trust the bartender without reservation".
Inspired by the Prohibition of the '20s, Barules' English speakeasy has a retro vibe. If you see three or two pedestrians disappearing into a British-style red phone booth on the streets of Fenyang Road, you are visiting Barules. Dark gold is the theme of Barules, and dazzling mirrors and delicate baroque reliefs fill the ceiling, giving it the atmosphere of a 19th-century bar. In addition, there is a dazzling master wall on the first floor, which is covered with photos of the most influential world-class bartenders, many of whom have become friends of Barules and have come to Shanghai as guest masters, and Barules plans to invite more master bartenders to surprise the drinkers in the future. The Dick bradsell hanging on the wall is the British bartending school of Barules.
Allen is the Head Bartender on the first floor of Barules and the winner of the 2017 Bacardi Legacy Global Cocktail Competition in China. The winner, Out to Sea, is a new creation based on Espresso Martini and a tribute to creator Dick Bradsell. Like Allen's stubborn ambition, Out to Sea blends a rich cold brew coffee with Bacardi 8-year-old rum, sprinkled with a thin layer of cocoa powder, and finished with sea salt for a brave sailor. On the first floor, open the nautical parchment roll wine list, which is the most popular of them.
If the first floor is as confident as the name suggests, with a hint of English banter, then a walk through the secret door to the second floor reveals the bar's sense of humor and playfulness. You'll need to find the code on the piano to open the door to the second floor of Barules. The more mysterious second floor, called "L", is a relatively separate team run by founder Sam Kuan. In order to bring more taste buds to the cocktail industry and customers, Sam Kuan set up his own laboratory in Shanghai to explore the composition of various ingredients and flavors, and it is because of his strong passion for exploration that he has the current "L". L's environment is quieter than the first floor, but the production is more out-of-the-box. Flipping through the menu of "L's" new era adaptation of classic cocktails, "Gold Shanghai" and "Audery Hepburn" are hilarious, and after tasting them, they will feel that each wine is like a funny little joke, which makes people smile heartily.
For example, C'est la vie - this is life, in order to express the theme of life's ups and downs, this wine is very clever in the blue cheese Bifuda Gin with lemon, grapefruit and pepper as the main glass, port wine with longan honey as the secondary glass, and salty cheese strips as a snack on the tray. The main cup is based on sour flavor and slightly bitter and slightly spicy, in which the fragrance of light dairy products will be sour, bitter and spicy smoothly blended together, the sub-glass is sweet wine, when drinking, first drink a large sip of the wine in the main glass, then drink a small sip of the wine in the sub-cup, and finally eat a sip of salty cheese, the five flavors are perfectly presented together without any sense of conflict. The best thing about this wine is its base wine, which has blue cheese as a medium to connect the other flavors.
The most surprising thing is that, just like the blue cheese Bifuda Gin, many of the cocktails on the second floor are based on the L team's own reprocessing or rebrewing, and they use the theme of handmade with raw materials, using various ingredients to pair the wine, bringing people a surprising feeling. In order to make such a wine, the main notes also brought many good wines from all over the world, such as Moutai, rice wine, 10-year-old Shaoxing wine, osmanthus wine, Japanese melon wine, etc., which are eclectic and full of creativity.
