Bartender Bruno Santos captures the flavours of Macau in a five-spice cocktail

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Macau bartender Bruno Santos highlights Chinese five-spice in craft cocktail

Macau bartender Bruno Santos highlights Chinese five-spice in craft cocktail

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When asked what spice best represents his hometown of Macau, Bruno Santos, a bartender who co-owns Black Lotus bar there, chooses Chinese five-spice. This blend of five aromatics can indeed serve as a metaphor for the multicultural city, as the cassia, or cinnamon, star anise and Sichuan peppercorns come from China, while the fennel has Mediterranean origins and the cloves are native to the Moluccas islands of Indonesia.

When combined, these individual spices transform into one distinctive flavour not found anywhere else – much like how Chinese, Portuguese and Southeast Asian influences created Macau’s signature fusion cuisine. The spice mix also reflects the city’s centuries-old history as an important port on the Portuguese maritime trade routes.

Santos also came to Macau from Portugal, moving to the city in 1986 at age four. He describes growing up in the former Portuguese colony as living in a museum. “I could see Portuguese culture, Cantonese opera, street food stalls and colonial architecture, which all coexisted in beautiful harmony,” he says.

Through Black Lotus bar, Santos wants to celebrate what he calls “the fusion of cultures that define the city”.

“My journey has always been about storytelling, whether through spirits, spices or spaces,” he says. “We create. I see mixology not just as a craft, but as a language that connects people across borders.”

So to tell the story of Macau, Santos created a cocktail that he named Dragon Spiced. It is made with gin from Macau’s Owl Man Distillery, juice from red dragonfruit and a house-made syrup infused with five-spice.

“It is basically a symphony of sensations,” Santos says of five-spice’s flavour profile. “It begins with the sweet licorice notes of star anise, deepens into the warm bite of clove and cinnamon, then surprises you with the numbing tingle of Sichuan peppercorns.”

He adds: “It opens a wide spectrum of flavours because they are, by themselves, quite different, but together they become very harmonious.”