PROFILE
HE CANNES Bartender, botanist, beekeeper – Emanuele Balestra brings the rich scents and aromas of the French Riviera together in his creative cocktails
L AW R EN C E WAT S ON
E Opposite: Emanuele Balestra with his collection of edible fragrances; Above: Emanuele’s Provençal version of a Paloma, enhanced with grapefruit & mimosa scent
manuele Balestra uses the word beautiful – a lot. It’s his love language. His other great loves are bartending, people and nature. Although not necessarily in that order. Let’s start with that last one, nature. Emanuele still remembers distinctly when he caught the botanical bug. “It was when I was asked to be part of the opening team at La Mamounia, in Marrakech – probably one of the most beautiful hotels in the world,” he recalls. That was 14 years ago, a long time before sexy, high-end alcohol brands were available in that part of the world. “So I helped to bring in as many of them as possible,” he says. “I introduced brands like Hendrick’s and Monkey 47 to Morocco and La Mamounia in particular. And as my brief was to devise something different for the hotel, I decided to create a beautiful garden, something to showcase the beautiful plants that grew in the region. I began with orange blossom, edible geranium and basil, then I turned them into beautiful jellies and flavoured sugars – very simple things. But from those early days, I would play around, hollowing out an orange, freezing the skin, then using it as a frozen glass to serve a jelly with delicate orange blossom frozen inside. It looked beautiful but more than that, the jelly added texture and had a lovely long finish. Nobody was doing that in 2009.” Born in Lombardy, in northern Italy, Emanuele was drawn to hospitality from an early age, first helping his ‘grammy’ in the family trattoria after school, then as he got older, spurred on by
29 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 45
