Aperitif drinking is having a moment.

The bulk of sales is moving away from “one big drink” and towards drinks you can talk over, snack over, and order again. Across bars globally, this shift has pushed aperitif-style cocktails and spritzes from seasonal fling to default option. It also does help that these drinks photograph well, travel well across cultures, and give bartenders a broad palette of aroma and bitterness to play with.

Yet at the same time, drinkers are getting fussier about quality. Whether it’s expressed in the attention to origin, ingredient quality, and the craft production cues that used to belong mostly to wine and fine spirits: small-batch language, production transparency, and the idea that even an easy-going drink can have depth.

And while aperitifs have historically been Europe’s everyday drink designed to open appetite and fit into public life before dinner, what has changed is that this once-local ritual has gone global, and each place now wants its own expression of a bittersweet taste, tuned to climate and cuisine.

And that’s the gap that Arveau slips into. This is a recently-launched equatorial aperitif made in Singapore by Distillius Craft Distillery, and it arrives with a clear point of view: make something that behaves like an aperitif should, but speaks in a vocabulary that feels at home in the tropics. The brand describes itself as an “equatorial aperitif” which is a phrase worth unpacking. Arveau is built around botanicals that feel familiar in this part of the world. It is also designed to be lengthened, brightened, and made social. Think soda, tonic, plenty of ice, a squeeze of citrus, and a drink that stays refreshing in a humid tropical climate.

Arveau is distilled using the same stills used in a gin distillery, bottled at 20% ABV and uses gentian, torch flowers, ginseng, galangal (“Thai ginger), calamansi, mandarin, and cloves. Calamansi and mandarin bring an intuitive citrus brightness in a spritz context while gentian and ginseng gently point towards the aperitif tradition of bittersweetness that open appetite and lift without overt bitterness. Singaporeans might also find a strange familiarity in its taste profile. After all, torch flowers and galangal may land in a register that rojak lovers would recognise instantly.

I recently visited Distillius to learn more about how Arveau is made.

The place feels part distillery, part cocktail workshop, where team is always testing, always nudging a recipe a little further towards what it wants to be. Philibert Gandy is the Head Distiller. Together with Operations Manager Ker Hian, they work through numerous batches of distillation regimes and new botanicals. I’ve had the chance to smell and taste a couple of prototypes that have left me properly impressed with what's coming next.

There is also Jay Gray, Brand Manager and a darling of the Singapore cocktail scene, who helps craft and test the drinks in the formats that matter most, because an aperitif is only as convincing as the way it behaves once you put it into a glass with ice and bubbles.

Though this is clearly designed to be spritzed, I first tasted Arveau neat. It struck me as really floral and glassy, with a mild citrus syrup sweetness and very familiar herbal notes. This is much more drinkable on its own than many traditional aperitifs – the bitterness is set to refresh rather than punish. Maybe it’s also just my Asian palate speaking as the flavour set feels strangely familiar when it leans into Thai ginger and calamansi.

I am most impressed with it in the spritz format. Firstly, the soda and dilution really unlocks the underlying fruitiness of the calamansi and mandarin. The citrus oils are also amplified, so what first appears as zest becomes a fresh lift of peels. Spices and herbs begin to surface by mid palate, with a dry peppery warmth underneath the citrus, some faint woody sweetness, and an aromatic soft ginseng finish. It drinks very easily but not lazily – there’s enough bitterness to feel like an adult drink, enough fruit to taste fun and inviting.

Phil pulled me sideways into the next part of Distillius to see what else they have been working on. The Super Pandan liqueur was the first tease. It sounds straightforward enough on the label – a pandan-flavoured liqueur at 20% ABV made by a distillery situated at 200 Pandan Loop. Tasted neat, this is pretty balanced, with fresh grassy pandan within in a lightly syrupy body. Nata de coco notes floating in and out with a milky-chewy sweetness and some brown sugar.

With just a splash of tonic added, the change is immediate. A touch of dryness tightened the sweetness, the texture snapped from soft to crisp and even more of the grassy aromatics come alive. Another really solid cocktail that would impress in a place like Singapore.

From there, the conversation turned to how these liqueurs are made in the first place. Ker Hian and Phil worked me through how distillation happens at Distillius. The team uses two Genio stills – a sophisticated modular column distillation system that can be configured any number of ways to give the distiller control over the output – from cleaner, higher-proof spirit to more aromatic or heavier runs.

To make Arveau, you begin with a gin-like distillation. A handful of botanicals are placed in the main chamber with pure alcohol and distilled to extract their most volatile notes. The vapour is forced through a a chamber full of copper saddles to remove sulphur. Then, the distillate is collected before they build the bittersweet backbone with a root maceration, steeping it in gentian and ginseng before sweetening, filtering and finally bottling.

It feels like this is the right moment for Arveau. The wider consumer market is moving towards bottles that don’t just taste good in ideal conditions, but fit social occasions, lighter palates, interest in flavour without high proof and authenticity. Arveau gets many of these things right. It’s been distilled with technical competence, made from ingredients that belong to the region’s flavour memory, and with great attention to the specific palate of consumers in this climate and region.

Practically speaking, as great as Arveau tastes, on-trade remains one of the most important places for it to build its custom based on how naturally it slots into a bar’s rhythm and drinks programme. To that end, Arveau is already being poured at Chip Bee Bistro as part of its core drinks programme curated by Jay. It has also appeared on cocktail menus at several other bars across Singapore.

Now available on Chip Bee Bistro's drinks menu: Arveau Lychee Spritz and Arveau Espresso Martini.

The Distillius team pays attention to that practical reality. The aim is not merely to make something that tastes good in ideal conditions, but to make liqueurs that hold up well in various mixes. Arveau’s 20% ABV makes it compatible with various builds - with or without Prosecco - allowing for more flexible service while still delivering a tasty aperitif experience. More than just a new novel new drink, it is an example of how a Singapore-made aperitif can take its place on menus where flavour, creativity and practicality all matter.

(Source: Sago House)

@CharsiuCharlie