Mixologist and general flamboyant man about town on fashion, cocktails and being gay.

This episode we talk to Dan Ni about the art of cocktail making, standing out from the crowd & polyamorous dating.

Hair colour? Azure. Lip colour? Raspberry red.

Links

Dan Ni's Tumblr

Daluva

Transcript

For full transcript, click "Next".

[FULL TRANSCRIPT]

This is Vietnam’s Renovation Generation. Sonic portraits of young minds reshaping the country’s future.

In episode 6 we talk to Hai Dang. Also known as Dan Ni.

When my mum named me - Hai Dang - “lighthouse” in Vietnamese, she had an idea of wanting me to inspire people. I’ve realised that's what I wanted to do more…

We talked to Dan Ni about the art of cocktail making, standing out from the crowd and. polyamorous dating…

Hi I’m Dan Ni, I worked here.

Dan Ni is 22.

I'm a bartender and a mixologist at Daluva...

...and a general flamboyant man about town.

What actually is a mixologist? We were at Daluva to find out.

Basically, a bartender is someone who practises making drinks and a mixologist is more of the process of creating a drink.

Daluva has a line up of tiny bottles on the bar that Dan Ni bought from a medical supply shop, and he’s filled with them liquids such as Buddha’s hand rice wine, rosemary bitters and kaffir..

This was done from a trip to Chinese drug store. We bought liquorice barks and literally just went aroun and sniffed everything until people shoot me out.

Jameson is a very bland whisky… it’s like canvas you can paint a lot of different flavours on and it compliments it.

 ... The Hanoi side car...

 This is like candied lemons, we... and soak them in brandy...

[MUSIC]

Vietnamese dried mango shrub, paprika powder and star anaise… It sounds very strange but the cocktail makes perfect sense…

 [MUSIC]

 Let’s go back in time to Saigon, and Dan Ni as a child.

What did he want to be back then, a cocktail maker? A fashion star?

[MUSIC]

 ...from a comic artist to... like a tour guide, or pilot… and my mum was a very good teacher so I dreamt of being a teacher as well.

 We’ve seen photos of Dan Ni from when he was that age until today, and have seen how he went through a transformation in his high school days.

Back then I always had a thing for style and clothing so I was the only boy in my class that had his hair done 6 times a year. Curled my hair, straighten it again, bob cut, bangs, fringes.

This is very unusual for Vietnamese guys. He must have had some kind of role model.

Looking back at the photos that my Mum had of her, when everyone had flared trousers, she managed to have her slim-fitting trousers made and she cut her hair when everyone was growing their hair longer. If she could manage to do that, at a very rural place, she is kinda a style icon to me, to be honest.

A couple of weeks after our evening at Daluva, we met in a quieter setting. We asked him to bring these pictures of his Mum.. expecting some torn vintage polaroids of the 70s.

But being a digital native, Dan Ni just took out his phone and showed us them on his instagram feed. 

That’s my Mum in the 90s and her alleged boyfriend.

[He looks really handsome.] 

Yeah, he's super tall as well. He was like 6 feet 1 or something. And this is her 22 years later. That’s the red dress that she had made... one of the pieces that has very strong impact on me.  

His Mum stands out like how Dan Ni does today, not conforming, brightening up dismal weather with bright colours. Where does this attitude come from? 

I think that has something to do with the fact that you know she got divorced... But before that she was always the one who raised us financially. I think it formed an image in the back of her mind that we need to grow up as independent individuals.

This was knowledge he needed,