Natasha Jules Has A Lil Thing for You at Barbados Food and Rum Festival

Natasha Jules can trace two decades behind the bar to one evening on the other side of it.

A friend had taken her to a bar in St Lawrence Gap. She was working in an office, her first job, when she found herself drawn to the life around her. Locals and visitors filled the place. There was laughter, conversation and an ease between the staff and their guests that made her wonder whether she had found where she belonged.

A small voice told her, “this is for you”.

She asked the owner if she could give it a try. He agreed. Twenty years later, she says, some of the people she served in those early days still seek her out wherever she is working. The conversation has lasted rather longer than that first evening.

This November, there is a new reason to find her. At Liquid Gold Feast on Sunday, 8 November, Natasha will be serving A Lil Thing, a cocktail with a modest name and a generous ambition. She wants the first sip to make someone pause, smile and turn to a friend with a recommendation.

Mixologist Natasha Jules. (Contributed Photo)

For the mixologist, who describes herself as bubbly and willing to try something different, the pleasure is in that exchange. A drink begins as her idea. Its real reward arrives on someone else’s face.

Some of the flavours she loves best take her back to childhood. Her mother would cut up watermelon and mango, put them in the fridge to chill and share them with Natasha and her brother, especially when the day was hot. Both fruits remain favourites in her cocktail making, carrying the memory of that simple kindness.

It is easy to understand their appeal. Watermelon offers a cool, clean sweetness. Mango has a fuller, more lingering richness. Served cold against the heat of a Barbadian afternoon, either can feel like exactly what the day was missing. For Natasha, the taste comes with her mother in it.

Those memories help explain what she hopes to create at the festival. She wants familiar fruit flavours to catch a guest by surprise, taking them somewhere they recognise even as they discover something new.

A Lil Thing began with a conversation with her mentor, Jamaal Bowen. He suggested two ingredients for the cocktail, one of which left her uncertain. She asked for time to think, considering how the flavours could work together and beginning to build the drink in her imagination.

Then a thought arrived with a name attached.

“I going do a lil thing with this and make it big.”

There is a little of Natasha in that sentence. The hesitation gives way to possibility, followed by a determination to make the combination her own.

Jamaal’s preview of the finished recipe brings together Mount Gay Silver Rum, locally made Kaiso Carambola Liqueur, green mango, cinnamon, Claytons Kola Tonic and lime juice. Carambola, known in Barbados as five finger, brings another familiar island flavour into the glass. In his description, its sweetness meets the tartness of green mango, with cinnamon adding warmth.

Natasha wants guests to discover the cocktail in stages.

“I want that warm spice to fill your nose first,” she says.

Then comes the sip, delicate and refreshing, with fruit at its heart and enough intrigue to send someone back to the menu for another look. She imagines a guest discovering an ingredient they would never have expected to enjoy that way. The surprise should be pleasant, the finish memorable.

Behind that easy enjoyment is careful work. Natasha is particular about consistency and the measurements of every ingredient. Getting the balance right is what allows a guest to enjoy the drink without having to think about how much thought went into it.

She knows the satisfaction of changing someone’s mind. When making cocktails overseas, including in neighbouring Caribbean islands, she has met guests who hesitate at ginger. They tell her they find its flavour too strong. She invites them to taste her version before deciding.

The response she treasures is the moment someone discovers that the ginger has a place without overpowering everything around it. A surprised look, a thumbs up, a conversation about what they thought they disliked. For Natasha, that is “one of the greatest feelings in the world”. It gives her another reason to keep experimenting.

That curiosity will have plenty of company at Liquid Gold Feast. At CARIFESTA House in Waterford, the Barbados Food and Rum Festival’s closing event takes up the theme “These Fields and Hills”, inviting chefs and mixologists to explore the island through its produce and flavours. Natasha’s contribution carries her own memories into that wider celebration of Barbadian talent.

Visitors can discover a taste of the place through the person who made their drink. Barbadians may recognise something closer to home, a fruit, a scent, a small pleasure they had almost forgotten. Natasha hopes the conversation will begin with a quiet “wow” and travel from one friend to another.

It is a lovely continuation of the evening that first drew her behind the bar. The laughter, the welcome and the pleasure of making someone feel good are still there in what she wants to offer.

Find her at Liquid Gold Feast. There is A Lil Thing she would like you to try.

Barbados Food and Rum Festival Events

Tickets for Liquid Gold Feast are $350 BBD, while a combo ticket for Rise & Rum and Liquid Gold Feast is $500 BBD. The Barbados Food and Rum Festival also includes Oistins Under the Stars on Thursday, November 5 and International Chef Demos on Friday, November 6, both free to attend; the Rum Route on Friday, November 6 at $200 BBD; and Rise & Rum on Saturday, November 7 at $250 BBD. Tickets are available from CS Pharmacy, Bridgetown; Nu Look Company, Roebuck Street; Mpowered, Sky Mall; Très Classe Boutique, Sheraton Mall; A&B Music Supplies, Wildey; Visual Oasis, Six Roads; the Lotto Booth in Speightstown, opposite the Bus Terminal; and the National Cultural Foundation, West Terrace. Tickets can also be purchased online at TicketNation.bb.
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