We don’t often think of a cocktail as providing a bridge from our childhood to our present but that is what Sofia Serje, the bar manager at Sydney bar Cantina OK, has found in her new cocktail, the Lulo Cooler.
Lulo is a tropical fruit that is probably best described as looking like a bright orange and green tomato. As part of the nightshade family, the fruit is not only related to tomatoes but also bell peppers and eggplant. But unlike its relatives, the Lulo isn’t savoury.
Instead, Serje, who grew up with the fruit in her native Colombia, says it has a sweet and tangy flavour, similar to kiwifruit and rhubarb. “My grandmother always used to pick me up from preschool and she would make me a drink called Lulada, which was like homemade lemonade in Colombia,” Serje remembers.
“Although it’s not always easy to find Colombian food in Sydney, especially since the pandemic, I was able to find some frozen Lulo pulp. I thought it would be amazing to use this in a drink, especially if it was made in the cantina-style of bold aesthetics and flavours.”
To make the drink, Serje used the pulp to make a sugarcane syrup, to which she added lime juice, a good backbone of Tequila and a non-smokey Mezcal to add a little bit of depth. As the Lulo Syrup was quite thick and syrupy, Serje wanted to lengthen it, so designed the drink in a Mai Tai-style where it’s poured over ice and then she added the snowcone effect on the top for its aesthetic quality.
“Some people were definitely confused when I described the Lulo as being like a tomato” Serje admitted. “but once I mentioned the flavours of kiwi and rhubarb people were happy to try something different. I managed to coerce quite a few people into trying it and the feedback we got was great,” she said.
With a range of Tequilas and Mezcals that you can’t get anywhere else in Sydney, Cantina OK has a strong Latin American following and Serje says there was definitely an excitement about seeing Lulo on the menu. “Everyone was asking where I had managed to find Lulo in Sydney but I wasn’t going to tell, it’s definitely my secret.
“Cantina has really given me the chance to connect with my roots in Colombia,” she continued. “And it’s been really fun exploring that aspect of where I come from and having that platform here to share that in my work.“
Lulo Cooler
Ingredients
40mls (1.35oz) Lulo Sugarcane Syrup
45mls (1.52oz) Tequila
5mls (0.17oz) Derrumbes Potosi Mezcal
30mls (1oz) Lime Juice
top with fresh passionfruit drizzle and mint.
Instructions
Shake the first four ingredients in an ice-filled shaker, then strain into an ice-filled glass. Add shaved ice to the top (in snowcone fashion). and then garnish with a passionfruit drizzle and a sprig of mint.
