bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Ashlyn Chak

How does a Scottish bartender with a strong aversion to menus craft an extensive cocktail list for the flagship bar at one of Asia’s largest luxury hotels?
By thinking outside the box – in this case, the jewellery-box-like space that is Wing Lei Bar at Wynn Palace in Cotai, Macau.
The bar, which is adorned with mirror panels, emerald-green curtains and gold accents, sets the expectation of offering a classic five-star hotel bar experience.
But the man behind it is determined to turn the concept into something unique.

Mark Lloyd is an industry veteran who has spent the past 15 years working and travelling across Asia, including 10 years bartending at J. Boroski, a speakeasy concept in Bangkok that was known for not having a menu. During that decade, he helped open branches in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
“The whole idea was bespoke,” Lloyd says. “It’s what I’m known for. I hadn’t had a bar with a menu for the previous decade. I get really bored really quickly with [them], which is why having a bespoke bar, for me, was a dream come true.
“I could do what I wanted, change what I wanted, make what I wanted.”
Lloyd joined Wynn Palace as its head of mixology and bar operations in March 2024. Although given the freedom to revamp the cocktail programme at Wing Lei Bar, he still had to come up with a set menu.
Luckily, the bar can seat only 35 people, which Lloyd says gives him and his team the freedom to “really push it” with “a crazy cocktail menu and whatever programme we want to do”.

The result is Unity, Wing Lei Bar’s new 12-drink menu launched in autumn, inspired by Lloyd’s food and travel memories. Each drink represents a city, a bar and a story.
Two of the drinks on the menu were inspired by the Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2025 awards ceremony, which was held at Wynn Palace in July. For it, Lloyd got two bar-industry legends to do a guest shift: Julio Bermejo, beverage manager at Tommy’s in San Francisco, and Sam Ross, an Australian-born bartender based in New York.
“It was probably one of the best guest shifts that’s ever happened at Asia’s 50 Best,” Lloyd says. “Everyone’s feedback from that shift has been the same: ‘Holy s***, how did you make this happen?’
“Honestly, I just slid into their DMs on Instagram, and they said yes. I was like, ‘This is incredible.’ You know when you meet people who are held in high esteem and sometimes they can be disappointing? These guys were not.”
The experience saw Lloyd craft cocktails in homage to his bar-industry colleagues.
One is a reinterpretation of Bermejo’s famous Tommy’s Margarita, called Tommy’s Holiday. The drink transforms each month as it “goes on holiday” to a different region. At the time of the Post’s visit, it was a salted lime margarita inspired by Chaoshan, a region in the eastern part of Guangdong province in southern China.
The other cocktail is Lloyd’s ode to Ross’s Penicillin, which he calls Not Quite a Penicillin. For this drink, he also uses southern Chinese ingredients – oyster sauce and sand ginger – in the drink that Ross traditionally makes with Scotch whisky, ginger, honey syrup and lemon juice.

“These two did a five-hour guest shift,” Lloyd adds of Bermejo and Ross’s contributions to the 50 Best Bars event. “The place was full the entire time. They must have made about 300 drinks between them. Everyone was smiling, everyone was happy. It was an incredible night.”
As well as hosting guest shifts, Lloyd and his team frequently travel abroad for them. And when a room is packed full of bartenders, things tend to happen.
Another of the drinks on Lloyd’s Unity menu, Clear & Spressy Danger, is an inverted twist on the espresso martini that uses coffee-washed vodka – imbued with the beans’ flavour but not their colour – stirred with pandan and soy sauce and topped with espresso foam.
He says the drink was born out of a “stupid conversation” and a misheard dare to chug an espresso martini during a night out in Singapore with the team from Hong Kong bar The Pontiac.

“Everybody does an espresso martini. I like to start my night out with one because it gives you that little perk up. But we need to be a little bit different. We can’t have people chugging espresso martinis [in a hotel setting]. We wondered if we could invert it and do it the other way around, and it just evolved,” Lloyd says.
The Unity menu’s Dak-Galbi also reveals inspirations from Seoul. This savoury and sour cocktail is made with chilli mescal, banana-infused makgeolli (Korean fermented rice beer) and drunken chicken marinade.
While Lloyd is responsible for the cocktail programme across the Wynn properties in Macau, he is happiest when he is behind the counter at Wing Lei Bar. After all, it is where he gets to relive his days slinging bespoke drinks when guests make requests.
“We have to have menus in hotels because there are lots of different guidelines and food allergy stuff and things you’ve got to be a bit mindful of,” he says.
“But I wasn’t trying to lose who I was coming here. Every night, I still create. I’ve kind of learned to love it … for longer than I normally would. I [still] enjoy the chaos, though. I like the fluidity of it.”


Your 2025 guide to the best Christmas cocktails in Hong Kong

‘Crazy cocktail menu’ at Macau bar honours bartender’s travels in Asia

‘Excellent’ dumplings, Spanish tapas, Indian: Hong Kong hotel manager’s favourite restaurants

Your Hong Kong weekend food guide for December 19-21

Food and Drinks

Scotland-born Mark Lloyd is the head mixologist at Wing Lei Bar in Wynn Palace, in Cotai, Macau. His new menu features twists on classic cocktails inspired by his trips to places from Singapore to Seoul. Photo: Wing Lei Bar

The interior of Wing Lei Bar. Photo: Wing Lei Bar

Lloyd says he and his team have been able to create “a crazy cocktail menu” for guests to enjoy. Photo: Wing Lei Bar

Lloyd’s Not Quite a Penicillin. Photo: Wing Lei Bar

Lloyd’s Clear & Spressy Danger is a variation of the espresso martini featuring coffee-washed vodka, pandan and soy sauce. Photo: Wing Lei Bar

Why are so many Hong Kong bars closing in 2025? Insiders explain ‘concerning’ trend

Foxglove, a speakeasy in Hong Kong’s Central neighbourhood, is set to become the latest in a string of major bar closures in the city in 2025. Photo: Christopher DeWolf

Foxglove’s 1950s-inspired glamour, dim sum and live jazz music have drawn customers for the past decade. Photo: Christopher DeWolf

The interior of The Daily Tot, which closed on December 2. Photo: Daily Tot

A declining interest in alcohol is one of the factors contributing to the Hong Kong bar industry’s woes. Photo: The Daily Tot

The Daily Tot’s Peel Street Spirit. David Sit, head of the bar’s parent company, says the decision to close it was “purely economic”. Photo: The Daily Tot

How Paris’ famed Chinese restaurant Davé and its Hong Kong-born owner drew the stars

(From left) Tai “Davé“ Cheung, US filmmaker Tim Burton and Lisa Marie Presley are pictured at Davé, a legendary Chinese restaurant in Paris, France that saw celebrities including Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Keanu Reeves, David Bowie, Tina Turner, Janet Jackson, Yves Saint Laurent and Tom Ford dine there.

Singer Madonna and Armenian-American film director and writer Alek Keshishian are pictured at Davé. Photo: Tai “Davé” Cheung

A Polaroid of Naomi Campbell features in A Night At Davé. Photo: Tai “Davé” Cheung

Davé poses with French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. Photo: Tai “Davé” Cheung

Sofia Coppola (left) and Kirsten Dunst are pictured Davé. Photo: Instagram/idea.ltd

Cheung cites the red decor and soft make-up lighting – which made “everyone look beautiful” – as one of the reasons Davé was so popular with celebrities. Photo: Idea Books

Cheung ran Davé from 1982 to 2018. Photo: Tai Davé Cheung

(From left) Cheung, American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and French author Jean-Jacques Schuhl are pictured at Davé. Photo: Tai “Davé” Cheung

The cover of Cheung’s book. Photo: Idea Books

German actress and former model Nastassja Kinski holds Cheung’s cat Momo. Photo: Tai Davé Cheung

Where to eat in Hangzhou, China’s rising fine-dining hub where regional flavours coalesce

Wenzhou marinated raw swimmer crab at Golden Silk. The restaurant is one of a number of recent additions to Hangzhou’s fine-dining scene, which has taken off since the Michelin Guide arrived in the city in 2023. Photo: Golden Silk

Song’s head chef Zeng Donghai worked under esteemed Hangzhou chef Wang Yong for 14 years. Photo: Evelyn Chen

For Zeng’s Eighteen Cuts, a secret sauce is poured over slices of raw East Sea crab. Photo: Evelyn Chen

Zeng’s signature Da Hong Pao crispy pigeon leg at Song. Photo: Evelyn Chen

Yu Zhi Lan’s Songsao fish noodle dish uses full yellow croakers from China’s Fujian province. Photo: Yu Zhi Lan

Yu Lan Chuan’s Bai Su Zhen features porcini, matsutake, lion’s mane and black fungus slow-cooked together with yacon and fresh nuts. Photo: Yu Lan Chuan

Braised Wenzhou beef shank, beef brisket, beef tripe and beef tendons at Golden Silk. Photo: Evelyn Chen

An array of seasonal vegetables at Pairedd. Photo: Evelyn Chen

6 of Singapore’s best hidden speakeasy bars that will take you back in time – and how to find them

Bartenders at Chandu create drinks with a narrative that are loosely based on history. Photo: The Robertson House by the Crest Collection

A bartender mixes a drink at Chandu, one of our picks of six of the best hidden speakeasy bars in Singapore. Photo: The Robertson House by the Crest Collection

The Mizuwari whisky highball at Live Twice uses Hokkaido soft water rather than soda to accentuate the malt notes of the Japanese Nikka whiskies. Photo: Instagram/@livetwicesg

Chandu is inspired by Singapore’s colonial era, when opium dens flourished in the city state. Photo: The Robertson House by The Crest Collection

Chandu’s Mata Hari cocktail is named after a Dutch dancer and courtesan. Photo: Facebook/Chandu

Oriental Elixir, located in a Peranakan rowhouse, is a dimly lit watering hole for nonconformist cocktails. Photo: Philipp Meier

Oriental Elixir’s Malabar Tamarind cocktail combines the sour ingredient with roasted cherry tomato gin, dry vermouth. Photo: Instagram/@oriental.elixir

Junior the Pocket Bar is a small, 25-seater speakeasy that tasks itself with changing the menu completely every few months. Photo: Philipp Meier

A cocktail titled Sesame from the Korea-inspired menu at Junior the Pocket Bar. Photo: Junior the Pocket Bar

Jade Harbour is part of The Bund menu currently offered at Junior the Pocket Bar, inspired by the Shanghai district. Credit: Junior the Pocket Bar

For its Korean Joseon dynasty-inspired menu, the interiors of Junior the Pocket Bar featured dragons. Photo: Philipp Meier

Roxy is a hip-hop-inspired speakeasy hidden inside the Miss Fitz restaurant in Singapore’s Marina Bay. Photo: Facebook/Roxy

The drinks at Roxy are based on classics, but are given their own spin. Photo: Facebook/Roxy

Last Word has finessed tipples that were invented in the 1920s. Photo: Philipp Meier

Last Word’s eponymous cocktail is a classic, blending gin, maraschino liqueur, green chartreuse and lime. Photo: Instagram/@lastwordsg

Lifestyle

Food & Drink

At Wynn Palace’s Wing Lei Bar, Scottish cocktail maestro Mark Lloyd pours his spirit into tipples inspired by places from Seoul to Singapore


At Wynn Palace’s Wing Lei Bar, Scottish cocktail maestro Mark Lloyd pours his spirit into tipples inspired by places from Seoul to Singapore.


‘Crazy cocktail menu’ at Macau bar honours bartender’s travels in Asia

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}At Wynn Palace’s Wing Lei Bar, Scottish cocktail maestro Mark Lloyd pours his spirit into tipples inspired by places from Seoul to Singapore

At Wynn Palace’s Wing Lei Bar, Scottish cocktail maestro Mark Lloyd pours his spirit into tipples inspired by places from Seoul to Singapore