We find Jay Moir sitting in Summer Experiment’s urban garden, surrounded by contrasting grey concrete and green foliage. It’s in a surprisingly under-discovered part of Saigon’s central Ly Tu Trong street.
Jay’s taking a brief break from doing what he does every day, playing with flavours and ideas, creating new drinks and strictly following only his own agenda. He does this by spending his time with a team as creatively hungry as himself.
This is the highest accomplishment for a bartender. But it took Jay 19 years to get here.
Jay greeted us with an unmistakably Australian flair as soon as we walked into Summer Experiment; welcoming, casual, and easy-going. It was no surprise, then, when he told us he’d always wanted to work in hospitality.
“I’m a very sociable person, I love people, and I love working with great people,” he said.
Jay took any hospitality job he could get after high school. He went from hotels, to airlines, to nightclubs. His portfolio became a collage of different roles.
Eventually, though, he would stumble upon a passion that would draw all of his skills together; mixology. The trouble was, he was still just a bar porter. “Like they say, ‘started from the bottom now we’re here’,” Jay reminisces. “I worked my way up from there.”
It is, of course, never enough to hop from position to position. Success takes drive, and a passion to continue learning. To Jay, the graduation from “just another bartender” to being a successful mixologist is a fine, but distinct line.
It is, of course, never enough to hop from position to position. Success takes drive, and a passion to continue learning. To Jay, the graduation from “just another bartender” to being a successful mixologist is a fine, but distinct line.
Jay prooves that a developed palate and a shed-load of experience is enough to kickstart a career.
He became the Bacardi’s Brand Ambassador; he taught and influenced multiple up-and-coming Vietnamese mixologists; founded the highly acclaimed Layla Eatery & bar, and went on to win Harper’s Bazaar Mixologist of the Year in 2019.
Even though he scored bigger managerial roles, Jay’s love for hands-on mixology and cocktail creation prevails. Every single day at Summer Experiment, you’ll see him behind the bar, doing his part.
“Don’t ever think you’re up here already,” Jay tells us. “Practice, play, go out there, learn. Go on Youtube, go see trends, go see other bars. Find a mentor who will really take you in and push you to be better.”
“Practice, play, go out there, learn. Go on Youtube, go see trends, go see other bars. Find a mentor who will really take you in and push you to be better.”
The Spicy Plummy Gimlet is deconstructed using ingredients with notes and tones that are different yet complementary.
The same passion could be felt from all of Jay’s staff, especially Dinh Thep, Jay’s prodigy, who he calls his “brother from another mother.”
At just 24, Thep had garnered the attention of Vietnam’s bar scene. He’s won prestigious awards like World Class Vietnam 2019 and World Cocktail Battle 2019, and is now the Bar Manager at Summer Experiment.
Jay stunned the cocktail scene with his first creation, Layla Eatery & Bar. Now he’s plowing his efforts and creativity into his next project, Sumer Experiment. The bar is inspired directly from the city it sits in, where ‘it’s always summer in Saigon’.
As the name suggests, the menu is full of cocktail experiments. Each item on the menu incorporates quirky and surprising ingredients, like home-dried fruit, rice, and spices.
It also showcases fun, new, extravagant techniques like infusion or liquid nitrogen. Keep an eye out for ones with botanicals – Jay’s personal favourite.
“Botanicals is my thing, I’ve always been fascinated with it,” he explains. “I love it when I drink something complex with a depth of flavour.”
Here, you can find experimental drinks of all kinds, from the expected classics to ‘twisted’ classics, from elegant and subtle twists to larger-than-life drinking experiences.
Son Tinh Ruou has managed to work its way into two of Summer Experiment’s cocktails.
True to their name, the Summer Experiment have taken the traditional gimlet and, well, experimented with it.
The Spicy Plummy Gimlet is deconstructed using ingredients with notes and tones that are different yet complementary. Southeast Asian subtleties are thrown in with Opihr gin and a smoother, contrasting Son Tinh Plum.
The drink is rounded off with spice-infused plum syrup and a dash of lemon bitters. This gives the drink a unique mix of spicy, sour and sweet flavours.
What really separates the drink, however, is the Vietnamese touch. A wince-worthy layer the finest Tay Ninh shrimp salt around the edge of the glass. The results? This full-flavored, urban-looking, snack-like adventure in your mouth.
The second Son Tinh cocktail at Jay’s new bar is the Sticky Colada. As a fruity-rum mix, we can only imagine it would be best-enjoyed pool-side.
It starts with a rum base, then adds Son Tinh Red Sticky Rice for a deep, subdued kick. It’s spiced up with a syrup made from smoked pineapple and bamboo shoots, then tied together with coconut water. If that’s not enough, Jay throws in a spoon of red sticky rice to munch on while you drink.
“We hope to be 100% zero-waste, but it’s a long process”
Summer Experiment’s mission is to set trends and pioneer the industry. This is the place to try new, sustainable, ways of business.
You’ve heard of farm-to-table. Now meet garden-to-glass.
Back along the wall of the patio, in an intimate spot in the midst of chaos, flushed with greenery and teeming with aromatics, is Jay’s home-grown garden. Whenever a herb is needed in the recipes, it’s plucked straight from here. Seasonal produce comes from the bowing longan tree, which bears fruit from June to August.
Just as pioneering and experimental is their zero-waste ambition. “We hope to be 100% zero-waste, but it’s a long process,” Jay explains.
It’s ambitious, but they’re already making progress with policies for bar-to-farm composting, as well as creative uses for ingredients that would usually be thrown away.
Dinh Thep’s Vietnamese Mule, with its pickled watermelon rind, and snackable watermelon seeds, is a fantastic example of this.
Jay concludes with an ambitious, but achievable goal. “We’re working towards being in the top 50 bars of Asia by setting these trends and employing these best practices,” he explains. “I’m very, very excited about Vietnam’s bar scene changing so fast, and I want to continue to be a part of that.”
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