The Mood Therapist

Liquid Laboratory at the InterContinental Hanoi Westlake with the Mood Therapist

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Liquid Laboratory at the InterContinental Westlake Hanoi with the Mood Therapist

Liquid Laboratory at the InterContinental Hanoi Westlake

Are you ready for the Liquid Laboratory?! Apologies, gentle readers, for the lack of updates. It’s been a little crazy around here…but I’m back and I’m busy!

I had a great evening on September 9 with the team at the InterContinental Hanoi Westlake. It was the first in a series of Liquid Laboratory evenings at the Sunset Bar. Each is a themed evening featuring a selection of modernist cocktails, paired with a delicious food offering crafted by Executive Chef, Jeremy Lasserre.

For the opening night the theme was Mixing it up: Bar Classics Re-worked… and featured the following menu: [Read more…]

The Grand Bean-to-Bubble: A Marou Chocolate Cocktail

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The Grand Bean to Bubble - Another Modernist cocktail by Hanoi's Mood Therapist, Rich McDonough

The Grand Bean-to-Bubble is a new Marou Chocolate cocktail with a hint of Grand Marnier, topped off with sparkling wine.

It was created for a charity fundraiser in support of The Library Project – an organisation that provides access to books for kids in rural Vietnam. It’s the result of a collaboration between the Mood Therapist, Marou and Moet Hennessy and debuted at an event at the Park Hyatt Saigon organised by Rice Creative.

The Grand Bean-to-Bubble is an elegant chocolate cocktail with a hint of orange that drinks like champagne and has a little surprise at the end… [Read more…]

Photographic Tour – My Modernist Cocktail Home Bar

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This is a quick photographic tour of my Modernist Cocktail Home Bar aka ‘the kitchen’.

Firstly the standard stuff! The (main) liquor cabinet now fills three shelves and it’s only a matter of time before the fourth shelf falls. In addition there are several other depositaries for additional bottles…

Modernist Home Bar - The Mood Therapist, Rich McDonough [Read more…]

Vietnamese Basil Daiquiri

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Vietnamese Basil Daiquiri - A modernist cocktail by Hanoi's Mood Therapist, Rich McDonoughThe Vietnamese Basil Daiquiri is a blatant rip off of Dave Arnold’s masterpiece the Thai Basil Daiquiri, developed for his New York bar, Booker and Dax, but we’re hardly going to be using that Thai stuff around here, eh? It’s a relatively simple drink (if you happen to have liquid nitrogen knocking around your house) but is just so fresh, intensely herbacious and tasty that it packs a punch well above it’s weight class.

The problem with using delicate herbs like basil in cocktails is [Read more…]

Clarified Lychee Martini

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Clarified Lychee Martini - A modernist cocktail by Hanoi's Mood Therapist, Rich McDonoughThe Clarified Lychee Martini is a simple recipe but a great cocktail for demonstrating the transformational abilities of the centrifuge. With this drink the difference really is night and day. Most lychee martinis are milky white affairs with plenty of flotsam/jetsam and not a lot going for them in the flavour department. Either taste the fruit isn’t pronounced enough or the gin is diluted down to the point of sadness…and who needs that?

[Read more…]

Location, location, location…

My location is your location! The Mood Therapist is a wandering soul who pitches up with his bag of magic at your home, business or event. Based in Hanoi, the Mood Therapist can offer more options closer to home but can always bring a little cocktail happiness across the region.

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I'd love to hear about your upcoming project. The more time I have to plan, the more special and creative we can get. Tell us all about it by filling out the contact form. Or, give me a call at +84 93 454 1970.

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