Ravi Kapur Is Redefining Hawaiian Cocktail Culture

As the owner of Liholiho Yacht Club and Good Good Culture Club, two restaurants that thoughtfully draw inspiration from his Hawaiian upbringing, chef Ravi Kapur is uninterested in leaning into stereotypes about the island’s food and culture.

When Ravi Kapur opened Liholiho Yacht Club in 2014, he found himself walking a tightrope: Intentionally drawing inspiration from the cultures he grew up in — Kapur was born in Hawaii to Indian and Hawaiian Chinese parents — without jamming together flavors was no small feat. “I didn’t want to just say, ‘Oh, I like this spice. I think I’m just going to throw it into this dish,’” he explains. 

But Kapur struck the balance, and Liholiho became known for dishes that honored different aspects of the cuisines he grew up around, like caviar with fluffy furikake-topped brioche, and deep-fried nori crackers topped with spicy mayonnaise and tuna poke. In 2016, it earned him the title of Food & Wine Best New Chef. Instead of resting on his laurels, Kapur kept pushing to find ways to highlight undersung ingredients and flavors from his heritage.

“In 2018, I had an uncle pass at his home in Maui, and the night before the funeral, my family and I were just decompressing with tropical drinks and beers by the pool,” he says. “My palate got exhausted from these delicious but very sugary, kind of cloying drinks.”

Looking down on the vista and ocean from his aunt’s home, Kapur realized that the sweet, tropical drinks many people associate with Hawaii failed to showcase the island’s indigenous ingredients. The day after the funeral, he headed to the local farmers market and felt inspired by piles upon piles of fresh turmeric. After several rounds of testing back in San Francisco, Kapur fell in love with a vivid, bright yellow combination of ginger- and turmeric-infused vodka. He named the spirit Olehna, which mimics the Hawaiian word for turmeric.

Herbaceous, citrusy, floral, and bittersweet, Olehna is a spirit that looks and tastes unlike any other, and Kapur is all in. He runs production from a dedicated craft distillery on San Francisco’s Treasure Island and uses California-grown turmeric and ginger. Initially made using a neutral corn spirit, Kapur is now highlighting another aspect of the island’s culture by transitioning Olehna over to a sugarcane base.

“The cultural ties of turmeric and ginger trace back to the Polynesians thousands of years ago, who brought those plants with them on their voyages of discovery to Hawaii,” he says. “Sugarcane was another of those ingredients.”

Despite the shift to a sugarcane base, Olehna isn’t sweet, nor is it a liqueur; at 80 proof, it packs a boozy punch similar to gin or vodka. In fact, Kapur likes to use it in place of gin to make a Negroni, but he also reaches for it to surprise and delight martini drinkers. It also shines in a simple spritz. At Liholiho Yacht Club, it’s the visual and flavor star of the Ginger Sunset cocktail, which also includes Japanese vermouth and ginger liqueur.

“This is about having something that, to me, felt representative of my background, which I don’t feel is always present on the back bar,” he says. “This is not a project that came out of the restaurant — this is a personal project.”

Olehna is available for $37 at bittersandbottles.com.