Jigger & Pony’s Indra Kantono is thinking beyond the cocktail bar

People The Jigger & Pony co-founder reflects on mentorship, expansion into Jakarta and why the future of Singapore’s cocktail scene may lie beyond drinks alone. Jigger & Pony co-founder Indra Kantono has spent 14 years building bars, developing talent and helping shape Singapore’s cocktail scene. (Photos: Jigger & Pony; Art: CNA/Jasper Loh) New: You can now listen to articles. This audio is generated by an AI tool. Indra Kantono is having an incredible year. In July, he was named Best International Bar Mentor at the Spirited Awards, followed days later by the Roku Industry Icon Award at Asia’s 50 Best Bars.His flagship bar, Jigger & Pony, ranked No 9 on Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2026; Cosmo Pony, the group’s first venture in Jakarta, came in at No 15; and its newest bar, BOP, debuted at No 52 on the extended list.“I have a million and one things to be grateful for,” he said, softly acknowledging what he considers his greatest blessing this year: the baby girl he and his wife, Guoyi Gan, welcomed in July. Jigger & Pony remains the flagship of the group Indra Kantono and Guoyi Gan founded in 2012. (Photo: Jigger & Pony) The couple founded Jigger & Pony in 2012 and have since expanded the business to eight venues employing 120 people across Singapore and Jakarta. It’s a rare achievement for two people who had never shaken a drink before 2010. Kantono and Gan in the lead-up to Jigger & Pony’s opening in 2012. (Photo: Jigger & Pony) BOARDROOM TO BARSTOOLSBorn in Indonesia and raised in Singapore, Kantono attended Anglo-Chinese School and Raffles Junior College before moving to New York, where he arrived thinking good grades were enough. They weren’t. “I’ve never met people who show up in classrooms in suits,” he recalled. “In the morning, they would go do their unpaid internships. I was scoring good grades, but holy cow, I was not half as driven as these guys.” He learnt that “being book smart is nowhere near half of the equation”.His parents are entrepreneurs: his father is in the timber business in Kalimantan, while his mother and aunt run bakeries. “I always wanted to do business,” he said, “but never had the guts to do it.” The security of well-paying professional jobs – first at Bain & Company, followed by a private equity firm – and the cultural weight of “good, steady” careers made the leap that much harder.He attributes the courage to make that leap almost entirely to his wife, Gan. When they met, she was flying with Singapore Airlines, thriving on human interaction but unwilling to be bound to a desk. They began talking seriously about starting something together. Indra Kantono and Uno Jang at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. (Photo: Jigger & Pony) She wanted a bar. He wanted to run a boutique hotel. Hotels were capital-intensive and out of reach. Restaurants were ruled out: “Cooking felt a lot harder than making drinks.” The bar concept prevailed. They prepared in parallel. Indra pored over magazines and bar lists, while Gan, still flying with Singapore Airlines, scouted places such as Employees Only in New York on her international trips and hand-carried spirits and mixers home. Both taught themselves the classics through books and YouTube videos.At Ishinohana in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japanese bartending changed how the couple saw the craft. “You think bartending is like rock and roll, and then you see the Japanese style. The movements are so precise. It’s almost like watching ballet,” Kantono said. At the now-shuttered Le Cabrera in Madrid, Diego Cabrera’s bar left an equally strong impression. “We realised hospitality isn’t about the drink,” he said. “It’s not about the alcohol. It’s about this camaraderie, social human connection.”By 2010, with S$400,000 (US$315,300) in combined savings, they were ready to take the plunge into Singapore’s nascent cocktail bar scene.MENTORSHIP AS A SYSTEM, NOT A COFFEE Jigger & Pony Group opened Cosmo Pony in Jakarta in partnership with Union Group, taking its Singapore-born hospitality philosophy overseas. (Photo: Jigger & Pony) Could Kantono have imagined this level of success? He let the question settle before answering: “We come from nowhere, no cocktail bars, to a cocktail capital in a span of 10 years. Who could have imagined that?” He paused. “And to be a part of that every step of the way. There’s no way I could have seen this coming. It’s just incredible.”Kantono’s impact on the Singapore bar industry is perhaps best summed up by Asia’s 50 Best Bars, which wrote: “Rather than seeing a bar as a place defined only by products, Kantono treats hospitality as an organisation-wide discipline.” The citation notes that his influence extends beyond his venues through mentorship, talks and advocacy for a more sustainable industry. Indra Kantono credits his wife and Jigger & Pony co-founder Guoyi Gan with giving him the courage to leave a secure career and start a business. (Photo: Jigger & Pony) That influence was also recognised at the 2026 Spirited Awards, where Kantono was named Best International Bar Mentor by the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation.“My approach to mentorship is quite different,” he said. “Many people view mentorship as the romantic ideal, a one-to-one relationship. I give you a pearl of wisdom and boom, you’re promoted the next day. What I try to do is create a culture. Because if I manage to create a culture, then it’s a many-to-many relationship.”Anyone who joins the group enters a structure built around the Pony Academy’s learning platform and senior buddy system, designed so that the Jigger & Pony way is absorbed almost by proximity. “I hope that by virtue of working with us, there is a Jigger and Pony way that influences how they approach this profession.”GLOBAL FLUENCY At BOP, Jigger & Pony Group translates Korean drinking culture for Singapore rather than trying to recreate Seoul. (Photo: Jigger & Pony) One of Kantono’s guiding ideas is “global fluency” – his answer to the tension between being worldly and rooted. “It is our mantra: Globally sophisticated. Authentically local.”The philosophy extends to Jakarta, where the group opened Cosmo Pony in partnership with Union Group. “We are bringing a piece of Singapore – the ethos, the mindset, the way – to Jakarta. That’s hopefully the beginning, and we are going to grow to more destinations in the future.”His newest project, Bartenders of Pony, or BOP, may be the clearest expression of this idea. Billed as one of the world’s first Korean-inspired cocktail bars outside South Korea, it draws deeply on Korean culture through the memories and palate of head bartender Uno Jang, a South Korean who has called Singapore home for more than a decade.“We’re not trying to recreate Seoul in Singapore,” said Kantono. “We’re trying to translate Korean drinking culture to Singapore.” The result feels distinctly Korean in mood and flavour, while retaining Jigger & Pony’s approach to craft and hospitality.THE NEXT POUR On Singapore’s cocktail scene, Kantono is not making any bold predictions. He believes the market is mature and healthy, increasingly comparable with those of London and New York.The future, he believes, lies in stretching the traditional definition of a cocktail bar. “Cocktail bars are going to go beyond just being a cocktail bar as traditionally defined. Now, it’s about taking that elsewhere.”That could mean food. “We are using the cocktail bar model to expand and include a big food element,” he said. BOP’s food programme, he added, has drawn strong feedback as an alternative to traditional restaurants as rising prices narrow their appeal.Or it could mean an entirely different theme. He points to Singapore’s Offtrack for weaving music into its bar experience, Hong Kong’s Bar Leone for bringing in sports, and Bangkok for its hybrid concepts.Fourteen years into the journey, the former consultant is as animated by aesthetics and atmosphere as he is by numbers. He helps drive the interior design direction, music and intangible “vibe” of each venue. “Now I am in the business of taste. The business of cultural zeitgeist.”Yet for Kantono, it ultimately comes back to people. “Alcohol is just one part of my job,” he said. “The people connection – that’s what’s worth protecting.”