The primary flooring of the Alonso residence in Marikina has been remodeled into a colourful tasting room—a playground of types for Ken Alonso, a stalwart advocate of native liquor.
A shelf alongside the wall behind the bar is lined with domestically made bottles of gin, tapuey, bugnay, lambanog, and lots of others—a toast to the model he based referred to as Proudly Promdi, a one-stop store celebrating heritage spirits and making them extra accessible.
And it’s right here—each the model and his precise house, and the metaphorical ‘promdi’ spirits every embodies—the place he will get to share all his native discoveries.
Ken Alonso figures out native potential
Proper earlier than the pandemic, he and his spouse Maina had been banking on their cell carts for occasions. When that didn’t occur due to all of the restrictions on the time, Alonso had an epiphany.
“I used to be actually simply washing dishes and I used to be so unhappy. Then it hit me. I noticed that to purchase native merchandise, I needed to buy them from totally different web sites. So I advised Maina, ‘let’s carry extra Filipino merchandise. That’s already our area of interest.’”
“This complete house was additionally due to the pandemic,” Alonso reveals. “It was a time when there was a fork within the highway for us the place we needed to determine to maintain going or cease. At that time, we had been actually going to cease however what stored us afloat at the moment had been bottled cocktails,” Alonso reveals.
“I wish to assist change perceptions of individuals. I additionally need individuals to acknowledge that we’ve merchandise corresponding to bugnay and tapuey, and masarap siya”
By means of Proudly Promdi, Alonso is ready to introduce many drinks from far-flung provinces. Since then, he has been steadily offering distinctive drinks to a few of the greatest eating places in Manila corresponding to Toyo Eatery.
Alonso’s targets are clear: “I wish to assist change perceptions of individuals. I additionally need individuals to acknowledge that we’ve merchandise corresponding to bugnay and tapuey, and masarap siya.”
It’s a virtually Filipino supper membership
Getting into the tasting room is a homey affair—layers of texture and references of Filipino references. A inexperienced and orange sofa by Studio Siriusdan is positioned within the nook with a wall of glass blocks. The piece de resistance is the bar, which is enveloped in an paintings by Addi Panadero of And A Half depicting scenes of provincial life—a farmer in a salakot rides a carabao and a lady in vibrant clothes carries a basket of fruits on her head and a bilao by her hip.
Friends who wish to embody bar carts and cocktails at their occasions come right here to style the concoctions utilizing native liquor. Extra just lately, the couple have opened up the house as HOHOL (an acronym for Cling Out Cling Out Lang) the place individuals can spend the night time tasting several types of spirits as they’re and as cocktails.
“The concept is coming to our home—which accurately is upstairs, and inuman lang. After we considered HOHOL, we needed one thing that displays us, not some strict meals pairing or degustation,” Alonso describes.
“The concept is coming to our home—which accurately is upstairs, and inuman lang. After we considered HOHOL, we needed one thing that displays us, not some strict meals pairing or degustation,” Alonso describes
On the day we hang around with Alonso, he creates a trio of cocktails, which features a sangria utilizing Bielma Bugnay fruit wine whose sweetness is balanced out with mezcal, tart pineapple and lemon, and contemporary guava earlier than ending it with a spritz of soda water. He places a tropical spin on the Negroni with the addition of Pedronian Tapuey, Zing ginger liqueur, and lemongrass tincture. The Kamias Margarita in the meantime will get a lift with Vino Isla tuba (a coconut wine), pandan-infused Blanco Tequila, and Manille Dalandan liqueur.
For meals, the couple sources bites round Marikina corresponding to pancit from Lola Helen’s Panciteria (which has been round for the reason that ’80s), pandesal from Genesis Scorching Pandesal, and barbecue from Lerma’s Barbecue. The help for native enterprise is intentional and so they consider it creates for a extra distinctive expertise.
Prouder moments to return
Though HOHOL has been met with constructive suggestions, there’s nonetheless a protracted approach to go in serving to change how individuals take into consideration native alcohol.
“To start with it was actually arduous. After I was beginning and had foreigners strive our bugnay wine, I’ve had the expertise the place they’d actually spit it out in entrance of me as a result of it was too candy. He was French,” Alonso candidly shares. “Or individuals would ask why it’s so costly or if it was actually protected to drink.”
“To start with it was actually arduous. I’ve had the expertise the place [foreigners] would actually spit it out in entrance of me as a result of it was too candy,” he says about native fruit wines
“This stuff are widespread. Our fruit wines are just like Jollibee spaghetti. It might be blasphemy for Italians for spaghetti to be that candy, however that’s simply a part of how Filipinos are. So identical to fruit wines, why do we’ve to alter how fruit wines are when it’s actually how Filipinos made it? These native winemakers from the province by no means tasted actual purple wine like merlot or cabernet so that they made it to fulfill their palate.”
With Proudly Promdi and HOHOL, he hopes to assist enhance consciousness for these native drinks and in flip enhance publicity of their makers. “As an alternative of attempting to regulate to the style of those exterior spirits, let’s uplift what we’ve been doing or what we’ve been making.”