Yangdup Lama

Yangdup Lama is bartender, bar-owner, entrepreneur, author and mixologist based in India and is known to be one of India's finest mixologists.

Lama has been featured by drinks international magazine in the Bar World 100 list of most influential people in the global beverage industry 2020, the first Indian to feature on this list. This follows the feat of having his bar Sidecar win a coveted spot as India's best bar in 2021 and the Asia's 50 Best Bars awards 2020 and 2021 and the Joint Nikka Highest Climber Award 2021.

Early life
Lama is the second child born to mother Kamala Lama (Sherpa) and father Late Namgal Lama (Yonzon) in the village of Gayabari near Kurseong in the hill district of Darjeeling in the North Eastern part of India. He completed Secondary School Certification (Class 10th) from Victoria Boys’ School, Kuseong and Senior School Certification (Class 12th) from Army Public School Bengdubi.

Lama moved to Kolkata in 1992 to study Hotel Management from IAM Kolkata after completion of which he moved to Delhi in 1995.

Sidecar
Lama is the co-owner of India's best cocktail bar Sidecar (Lama's second bar) in Greater Kailash, New Delhi in 2018. Sidecar continues to grow in prominence on the Asian cocktail map and in 2021is named the joint Nikka Highest Climber after rising twenty-four places in the list of Asia's 50 Best Bars since 2020, number 16 in Asia and 4th in world.

In 2020 the William Reed Group ranked Sidecar amongst the top 50 bars in Asia making it the only bar in India to feature in the list.

Cocktails & Dreams/Thirsty Three Hospitality
After serving in Hyatt for four and a half years, Yangdup founded a mobile bar tending service company called Cocktails & Dreams and in September 2003, Cocktails & Dreams/Thirsty Three Hospitality – a bar service and beverage consultancy company. Later he opened a commercial bar called Cocktails & Dreams, Speakeasy in Gurugram (Gurgaun) and also a bar training and beverage management school by the name Cocktail and Dreams Beverage Studio in Delhi.

Polo Lounge, Hyatt Regency Delhi
Lama joined the Hyatt Regency Delhi as a food and beverage server in the year 1995 where he took to bar tending and worked at the prestigious Polo Lounge bar in the hotel.

Awards and accolades

 * Sidecar- The Best Bar in India 2021
 * Sidecar 2021- Joint Nikka Highest Climber after rising 24 places in the list of Asia's 50 Best Bars since 2020.
 * SIdecar- Asia's 50 Best Bars 2020
 * Drinks International Magazine- 2020 list: 100 most influential people in the beverage industry globally
 * Indian Bartender of the Year 1999
 * The Asia-Pacific 30 under 30 Award 1997.
 * India attaché by Tales of the Cocktail New Orleans for the years 2017–18
 * American Whiskey Ambassador India 2017 by Distilled Spirits Council of United States.(DISCUS)

Books
Cocktails & Dreams: The Ultimate Indian Cocktail Book