Do you remember Sam Malone? A former basketball player, who later became a bartender and was turned into a sex-symbol, making history as one of the most charming sitcom characters? Yes, the bartender in Cheers, that`s him.

Well, picture me, at several thousand km from Boston, 30 years after the American serial, in Buddha Bar, in Dubai, meeting a “real Sam Malone” with as much verve as the character himself, but with a lot more skill in mixology (I can`t remember Sam ever making a cocktail, am I right? In Cheers it was rather the question of beer).
I struck up the conversation with “Sam from Dubai”, Priyanka (came from Sri Lanka), and after a nice chat, he told us he felt like making a surprise to us. He took his glasses, his shaker, and while he was talking to us, he made two delicious cocktails, one for girls and one for boys. He wouldn`t tell us the recipe, but in the flow of conversation, I made him talk, so, I found out that he had poured Pisco, a kind of brandy from Peru into the first one and a Japanese whiskey into the second one; the whiskey had been smoked in a special installation. Pretty cool, isn`t it?
It was cooler when he found out the country we were from and showed us, with pride, a cup with Dracula on it that he had received from a Romanian barmaid. Well, here`s the power of a country brand!
Cheers!