A sustainability ledger
Penicillin, by what doesn't leave the building
Penicillin opened on Hollywood Road in 2020 as Agung Prabowo's argument that a serious cocktail bar could operate on a closed-loop sustainability model and still produce drinks that compete on the Asia 50 Best stage. The bar fermented, distilled, smoked and recycled in-house from day one; every ingredient on the menu was sourced within a defined radius or grown on the bar's own urban farm. Within two years Penicillin was on Asia's 50 Best Bars and on the World's 50 Best at #41. The bar publishes its sustainability ledger annually. The 2025 version, lightly edited.
Penicillin — Sustainability ledger 2025
Annual published summary · Hollywood Road, Hong Kong
What stays in the building
Citrus peels (lemon, orange, lime)100%
Re-used as oleo-saccharum, oil extracts, candied peel, fermented into shrubs. Nothing peeled at the bar leaves the building unused.
Spent coffee grounds (from cocktail use)100%
Composted on-site for the herb garden. Around 12kg per month.
Aromatic herbs (mint, basil, rosemary)95%
Grown in the bar's rooftop garden, used same-day. Imports limited to winter (when on-site growing is slow).
What gets fermented in-house
Pineapple skins → tepache~14L/wk
Apple cores → cider vinegar~6L/wk
Banana peels → banana wine~2L/wk
Yoghurt whey → clarified milk punch base~3L/wk
What the bar imports
Base spirits (gin, rum, whisky)~80% Asia
Heavy weighting toward Asian distilleries (Japanese gins, Taiwanese whiskies, Filipino rums) reduces transport footprint.
Glassware (recycled)100% local
Sourced from a Kowloon glass recycler. Every cocktail glass at Penicillin has previously been something else.
What the bar wastes
Food waste per cocktail served~3g
Industry average for cocktail-bar food waste is approximately 35g per drink served. Penicillin's figure is approximately one-tenth of that.
Order the Negroni - the bar's standing version is built on its own fermented citrus and uses a vermouth blend made in-house from imported Italian wine and locally-grown botanicals. After that, the Banana Wine Daiquiri (built from the banana wine listed above) is the bar's most explicit argument that the sustainability model is not the point - the drinks are. They have to be excellent first; the sustainability is what allows the bar to keep making them.
