Cocktails on Gili Meno: five tequila, five rum, and two bottles from the same Chilean family

Count the house cocktails at Pomona and a pattern shows up. Five are built on tequila reposado. Five are built on rum. Then there is a pisco sour, a frozen margarita, a sangria for the table, and nothing else. We are a tequila bar that also takes rum seriously.

The tequila five

The Margi'Verde is tequila reposado with triple sec, lemon, cucumber and fresh jalapeno, and it is the only cocktail on the list with the chilli mark. The Pomelona swaps the heat for bitterness: reposado, Aperol, lime, agave and pomelo soda. Passion Fire uses Campari, pineapple, orgeat and passion fruit. The Golden Front is the strangest of them, with mango, a mango chilli syrup, egg white and basil. And the Bloody Maria is a Bloody Mary with tequila in place of vodka, seasoned however you like it.

Most are 140K. The Golden Front and the Bloody Maria are 130K.

The rum five

Hot Havana: spiced rum, Campari, pineapple, lime and ginger. Rum Ritual: dark and light rum with pineapple, mango and lemon. Burnt Gold: dark rum, amaro and chargrilled pineapple. Sunset Paradise: pineapple rum, passion fruit and peach, 130K. Sweet Solstice: spiced rum with Aperol-infused strawberry. Pineapple is in all five, which tells you something about where we are.

Plata, reposado, anejo

If you drink tequila neat, the words on the bottle matter. Plata, or blanco, is unaged or barely aged, and tastes closest to the agave. Reposado means rested: it has spent months in oak, which softens it. Anejo has been in oak for at least a year. The list by the glass covers all three. Jose Cuervo, 90K. Herradura Plata, 110K. Espolon Reposado, 130K. 1800 Anejo, 170K. If you want to taste what time in a barrel does, order the Herradura and the 1800 side by side.

Why the wine list is Chilean

Three wines, all from Chile, all 600K a bottle, with a small pour at 130K and a large at 220K for the two still wines. Two of the three come from the same family winery, Casa Silva in the Colchagua Valley: the Sauvignon Blanc and the Dona Dominga Carmenere. The third is the Undurraga Sparkling Brut.

The Carmenere has the better story. It is an old Bordeaux grape that reached Chile in the nineteenth century and was then grown for generations as Merlot, because the vines look so alike. A French grape expert identified it in 1994. Most of the world's Carmenere now grows in Chile, which is a fair reward for more than a century of mistaken identity.

If you are not drinking

The juice and smoothie list is long enough to have its own article. The short version: cold-pressed juices at 50K and smoothies at 60K, blended to order.

Happy hour runs every day from 16:00 to 18:00, with margaritas and caipirinhas two for 140K. All prices are subject to 7% service and 10% government tax.