Cocktail stories: Cosmos Club, Galaxy Bar, Dubai
Among a lineup of celestial cocktails, one star serve shines particularly brightly at Dubai’s Galaxy Bar.
*This feature was originally published in the December 2025 issue of The Spirits Business magazine.
Since Galaxy Bar opened in Dubai’s DIFC neighbourhood in 2019, beverage director Krystian Hordejuk has masterminded many a bespoke cocktail, to the point where he’s been able to pen a recipe book that documents 60 of them all together, called Galaxy Bar Cocktails.
A serve that’s been on the menu since day one, and one of a few originals that’s managed to retain its place there, is the Cosmos Club, a riff on the classic Clover Club.
“It’s definitely one of the best sellers, especially for the ladies. We’ve sold thousands,” Hordejuk says of its popularity. “We didn’t want to create yet another passion fruit drink, which is a trend in Dubai – passion fruit in cocktails is like ketchup here. We looked at what could feed a brand such as Galaxy Bar – having a drink with a bright reddish colour and a little pinkish cloud that sits on top.”
Categorised as smooth and indulgent, the cocktail is formed by a backbone of three ingredients: raspberry cordial, raspberry foam, and Metaxa 12 Stars – a Greek brand that Galaxy Bar has worked with closely from the start and which Hordejuk says is in the bar’s DNA. “Being a grape distillate, Metaxa is not necessarily the easiest spirit to mix,” he notes, “but we found that it goes really well with certain fruits and berries, so that gave us an idea to put a spin on the Clover Club.”
As a high-volume bar, he stresses the need for efficiency with ingredients, so instead of using fresh raspberries, the team makes a raspberry cordial. “We’ve got fresh fruit, sugar, water, lemon juice, citric, lemon zest, and a touch of Sauvignon Blanc for a nice fruity acidity,” he says. The final touch is the raspberry foam, or spuma, which the team makes with a Thermonix set to 80°C. “The taste profile is fruit-forward, super-clean, silky, extremely aromatic, not overly sweet, and well balanced,” Hordejuk says. Or perhaps ‘out of this world’, if he wanted to stick to the bar’s theme.
Cosmos Club
Ingredients
40ml Metaxa 12 Stars
50ml Raspberry cordial*
50ml Raspberry foam*
Glassware: Nude Savage Pony 13.5cl
Method
Pour Metaxa and cordial into a mixing tin, add ice cubes (⅔ full) and stir. Strain into a coupette glass, and top with raspberry foam.
Raspberry cordial
Ingredients
125g Fresh raspberries
125g Caster sugar
125ml Water
50ml Sauvignon Blanc
25ml Lemon juice
5g Citric acid powder
15g Lemon zest
Method
Using a Thermomix set at 60°C, blend all ingredients at a moderate speed for three minutes. Filter the purée through a mesh tea strainer and pour into a sterilised bottle. Yields 500ml; keeps in the fridge for a week.
Raspberry foam
Ingredients
125ml Fresh raspberries
50ml Water
25ml Agave syrup
½ Sheet (1g) gelatine
50ml Hot water (about 50°C)
Method
Using a Thermomix set at 80°C, blend the raspberries, water and syrup at moderate speed for 15 minutes. Filter the mixture through cheesecloth. Soak gelatine sheet in cold water (with ice cubes) until soft. Dissolve in a little hot water then stir into the raspberry mixture. Transfer to an iSi cream siphon, store in the fridge. Shake well before use. Yields 200ml.
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