Wang Yuwen: Devoted mixologist in Kunming

For each place, he makes a special cocktail, via which people can better know a certain city. Look! Here is a “Yunnan” cocktail in his hand.

It just takes 3 minutes for Wang Yuwen to make a Yunnan cocktail at his bar. For the little show, however, he has been working hard for 11 years.

Wang Yuwen, a native of Wuhu City in east China’s Anhui, now lives in Kunming, Yunnan province and works as a bartender here.

When we first met Wang, he was in a blue suit, neat and tidy. "At my bar, you just relax and feel at home." Wang sees the bar as a place for exhausted guys.

As a bartender, his job is to use a special cocktail to rid the guests of their loneliness, so that they can be really relaxed.

When it came to his first cocktail, Wang Yuwen recalled with a smile: “It was over 10 years ago in my high-school days. I fell in love with a girl and I just wanted to make her a cocktail.”

Back then, Wang had no idea of making a cocktail so he searched the internet for tips. Getting some chili oil and a glass in the supermarket instead of tomato juice and tools, he set down to making his first cocktail...

The “cocktail” was not favored by the girl, but he thought of being a mixologist there and then.

"Now the girl’s figure is blurred in me. My first cocktail wasn’t good enough, but I’ve had something to do with cocktail since then." Wang recalled.

In 2007, Wang Yuwen became a bartender in Beijing. In 2014, he came to Yunnan and opened the Pukou bar in Kunming the next year. Now he settles down in the city.

Four years on, Wang has been serving at the bar, making cocktails for the guests every day and enabling them to see different customs and foods.

For each place, Wang makes a special cocktail, via which his guests can better know a certain locality. Here is the cocktail he created for Yunnan.

This is an azure cocktail, with candy floss floating on the glass rim. Evoking a sense of purity, the cocktail reminds us of the blue sky and white clouds in Yunnan. A sip of wine plus a gentle bite on the candy floss makes up the special taste of life you have in Yunnan.

Using local ingredients of cured beef, corainder, Pu'er tea and others, Wang can make various cocktails to represent Yunnan flavors. He just wants to use cocktails to rid the guests of loneliness in the journey.

He often chats to his guests on cocktail history, cocktail manners and the Kunming city, rendering them a good time.

Negroni, a bitter-sweet cocktail, is Wang Yuwen's favorite. “It is a reminder of life, where joys are coupled with sorrows.” Wang sat quietly at the counter, continuing making cocktails with care and patience.

By Yao Chengcheng, Li Wenjun and Wang Shixue