Modern Cocktails: Monica Berg On The The Moment & The Movement
WITH some of the industry’s most coveted accolades to her name — from having her bars ranked among the world’s best, to titles like ‘Industry Improver’ and ‘World’s Best Bartender’ — Monica Berg has long been a leading light in the global bartending community. She is a globally renowned bartender, entrepreneur, and innovator — best known as the co-owner of Tayēr + Elementary, one of London’s most cutting-edge bars, consistently ranked among the World’s 50 Best Bars. She has been named Best International Bartender, and in 2023, she was honoured as Drinks International’s Most Influential Person in the Bar.
Raised in Oslo and based in London, Berg was in India recently, where food writer Priya Pathiyan caught up with her between a packed Johnnie Walker Black Label ‘One Step Further’ masterclass at Masque in Mumbai, followed by a guest shift at The Masque Lab. Excerpts from the conversation follow:
You’re associated with an ingredient-first, minimal manipulation approach — how do you define ‘modern cocktail’ in 2025, and where does a Scotch blend like Johnnie Walker Black Label fit into that vision?
I would say that probably the modern cocktail has a focus, or even sometimes hyper-focus, on attention to detail and all the ingredients and raw materials. And I think that’s also in the same breath why Johnnie Walker Black Label has a space there. It is a liquid that is incredibly complex in some ways, but easy to mix with in other ways. But it does require you to understand the flavours and elements that go into it.
So, you can use it in a minimal way as well?
Yes, absolutely. Just highlight the flavour notes that are already there.
Fermentation and foraging (such an important part of your childhood) are crucial to the New Nordic lexicon. Do you see those techniques working with whiskies like JWBL in a way that’s still craft-focused and scalable?
The thing is, when I was foraging as a child, it wasn’t called foraging. It was just your parents sending you out to get things. When you’re doing fermentation, you’re creating complexity, layers, and new flavours. In both foraging and fermentation, you’re not spending money, but you’re spending time. And you’re essentially building yourself a much bigger flavour library to play around with.
Looking back at your 2013 World Class experience, how does today’s whisky cocktail landscape feel different?
I feel like there’s more acceptance for whisky cocktails. People are more intrigued by them, embracing them. For so many years, we were told that whisky should be drunk like this, so there’s always going to be this transformational period where you start to change the conversation before people catch on. But so many things have changed after the pandemic. You have a whole new generation in the industry, but it doesn’t have all of these historical references. And the new drinkers, they don’t care about the heritage and the tradition of things. They only care whether your brand matches with their brand.
When you balance curiosity and novelty with drinkability and longevity on a menu, how do you approach a whisky-led cocktail so it’s not just trend-driven but timeless?
I think for something to be timeless, you need to stop following others. I would say that my drinks have not changed that much over the years. The combinations, the ingredients that I like to work with are the same, but the expression has matured, become richer, fuller. As I develop, they also develop.
Sustainability is a big conversation in bars. Could you share any examples from your JWBL collaboration that reflect practical, lasting change in sourcing or service?
There are many. For example, in my bar, because I also have the right licences and it’s allowed in the UK, I can buy whisky in bulk directly from the distillery in containers that are not glass. By buying spirits in bulk, you can avoid waste. Also, I will use an ingredient for as long as I can until there’s no flavour left, and then I’ll give it to the kitchen so they can make stuff from it. So, when I buy a mango, I will be able to use it three times before it’s dead. I’m the master — I can have one mango, and I will make 200 cocktails!
The rise of low-ABV drinks as a trend is changing menus. How do you keep whisky-based drinks like those with JWBL relevant to this shift?
I would say that it’s relevant because when you want to lower the ABV, you want to still maximise on the flavour. You want to have products that are rich in flavour. So, even though you may want to cut the strength in half, you don’t need to make it a lesser flavour experience.
Your collaborative approach at Tayēr + Elementary mirrors the way JWBL blends global influences. Do you see parallels between the whisky-making process and your menu development?
Definitely, because as a bartender, technically, I don’t necessarily make things. I do, because that’s the role of the modern bartender, but traditionally, as bartenders, we take other people’s work, and we blend it together. It’s our job to know a little bit about everything, and know enough about the products that we use, so that we can use them in the best possible way. And this is the same with the whisky blend. There’s a lot to say about consistency, because it is good, when it’s consistently good. For example, when I finish work, and I just want to sit down and have a drink, I don’t want to be challenged. I just want to relax. You give your brain and the palate some time off, and this is sometimes needed as well… the consistency of knowing what to expect.
I was talking with Alex (Kratena), my partner, and when we were discussing this project, we were talking about all the moments, all the places in the world we’ve had Johnnie Walker Black Label in. And how this is the reason that chefs envy us sometimes, because we have the consistency of knowing what we work with all the time, and we use that as the canvas, and then we apply other layers to it, and we apply, like, a fresh product or a fresh ingredient, but there’s something nice about having at least 60 percent done, you know? You know what you’re going to get, and then you just build on it. You don’t have to go through the process of creation every single time. You can just let the products do it for you.
So, what’s next at Tayēr + Elementary — and will your JWBL partnership influence upcoming menus or techniques?
A lot of people ask me when the next bar will open. The answer to that question is never. There’s never going to be a Tayēr + Elementary anywhere else because it’s time, place and space. Also, I don’t want to. During the pandemic, one element of the innovation was the ready-to-drink bottles, which is a retail product. It’s not a product that is enjoyed inside the bar. Since a bar is a physical space, you can only ever make as much money as the walls allow, but the bottles, they can be enjoyed anywhere. And this is the future, I think, because it means that there’s unlimited growth. And especially for us, as we sit in a very different segment because we are definitely premium. People take home our bottles, a lifestyle aesthetic, which they put on the table, on display. Plus, we only use named spirits. We don’t try to hide what we are putting inside, and we rely on the recognisability of the brands that we use, and we choose them for a reason as well.
I always have this inclination towards more educational projects. I like branding, I like business, I like working with people in the industry. Like I said in my seminars with JWBL, they don’t just copy-paste what I do, they will take what I show them and find a way to do their own version of it and take it one step further. That would be the ultimate flex for me as well, to see my ideas presented back to me, but probably improved. That’s always the beautiful thing about this young generation – that they always find holes in your theory and then they improve them.
Share your vision for cocktails of the future.
Right now we are in the era of the modern cocktail bar. In the future, we will keep the things that are good, and we will improve the things that are not. We will keep this new interest for incredible ingredients, and we will refine the ways that we work with them, but we will be much more consistent, because that is the Achilles heel of bartenders, that we sometimes are not as consistent. And I speak from a point of view where I am guilty of that, and I have learned over the years to not be that.
