Demitria “Demi” Dana Paramita is aware that not many Indonesian bartenders, especially any her age, have made a resounding splash overseas, let alone female bartenders.

That said, she humbly refutes the idea that she has emerged as a “female icon” in the bartending industry at home. In fact, she has never thought of herself that way.

“I mean, if people really think of me like that, I will say ‘thank you’ and I will be very proud of myself, because what I did was actually impactful to others,” the 28-year-old told The Jakarta Post on Aug. 2.

“But if they say that I really feel that [way] because I want to be that, then no. [...] Because this is already my daily life. It’s really nice to work in this industry because people are really cool and you encounter different stories every day.”

Demi may inadvertently continue to break the glass ceiling in the niche industry, thanks to her impressive achievements at various international bartending competitions and her gigs at some of the most popular bars and pubs in the Southeast Asia region, as well as her childlike, innocuous joy mixed with good old-fashioned competitive spirit.

From cakes to cocktails

The native of Medan, North Sumatra, never imagined that she would be pursuing a profession as bold as bartending, especially during her formative years. As a child, Demi led an “ordinary life” in a conservative familial environment, though her parents started to “ease up a little” over time.

“I’m actually Chinese-Indonesian, and Chinese people in Medan are very, very conservative somehow. They don’t know, like, how to go to bars. They do drink, but just with family and friends. That’s it. They don’t go out or go to clubs together,” said Demi.

Looking back, Demi says her younger self was “in between” an extrovert and an introvert. Cut to the present, and she has learned that being the life of the party is not a prerequisite to becoming a successful bartender.

“Most people think that a bartender must be an extrovert, since they meet a lot of people every day. But the truth is, not necessarily. It’s just part of our profession,” she said with a shrug. “If you’re an actual extrovert, that’s good. But for some reason, a lot of bartenders I know are kind of introverted.”

But bartending was not her initial choice. After graduating senior high school, she left her hometown for Malaysia to study pastry in 2013, with hopes of becoming a pâtissier.

Her plans took an unexpected turn, however, when a senior student encouraged her to participate in a campus-wide coffee-brewing competition. To her surprise, she scored high throughout the competition, even if she wasn’t crowned the champion.

Feeling that she had to “avenge” her loss, she entered another competition the following year. But it turned out the competition was not on brewing coffee, and was instead on mixing cocktails and mocktails. Once again, to Demi’s surprise, she did well, this time placing runner-up in the cocktails category and winning first place in the mocktails category.

The experience made her realize that, unlike baking pastries, she could “combine all of my skills into one” when concocting a cocktail.

“Most of my drinks, there’s a pastry touch in them,” she added.

Global shaker

Demi scored her first bartending gig in 2015 at the now-defunct Lou Shang Bar & Cafe. She recalled the job as being “quite tough” for her as a rookie bartender, especially because the team “had to build things from scratch”, including the bar’s signature drinks.

To help gain recognition for Lou Shang Bar, Demi entered various bartending and mixology competitions, and ended up winning the Best Belvedere Martini Competition in Kuala Lumpur that same year.

She also placed first runner-up in the West Winds Gin Juniper Smackdown competition and second runner-up in the La Maison Cointreau Finals Malaysia the following year.

One of her bigger achievements during her Malaysia gig was concocting an original cocktail that she named The Assam Laksa Cocktail. Demi described it as “the united of Malaysia”, as it took its inspiration from laksa, a soup. The gin-based cocktail led her to win Malaysia’s Monin Cup 2016 and to finish in the top six of the Monin Cup Asia Pacific 2016 final.

But how does a spicy, savory soup become a cocktail?

“There’s no way you use the laksa broth and then you put ice in it, right? So I actually broke down the flavor, and then I ‘extracted’ [the flavor] and turned it into a drink,” explained Demi.

“My goal at the time was, I wanted to let them know that you would still enjoy it without the prawn paste,” she continued, referring to an ingredient commonly used in laksa.

While Demi had started making a name for herself as a bartender and mixologist, this did not happen without a few concerns, particularly from her parents.

“For them, [bartending] is like when night becomes morning and morning becomes night. And then you’re a woman and, like, ‘Why do you want to work in nightlife?’ All these kinds of things always happen if you’re a daughter and you want to be a bartender. So I told them, like, ‘It’s okay, let me try it first,’” she recalled.

Demi’s bartending journey eventually led her to another bar in another country. In 2017, she joined Anti:dote bar in the Fairmont Singapore hotel. There, she discovered that Singaporean bartending scene was not as cutthroat as all the rumors claimed. In fact, it was the opposite.

“We don’t really see ourselves as competitors because [there are many] bars,” she said, highlighting that the bartenders all strived to “grow together”.

Demi continued to make waves, especially in the competition circuit. Some of her professional achievements in Singapore include winning first runner-up in Singapore’s La Maison Cointreau 2018 and placing among the top 3 finalists of the 2019 Chivas Masters in Singapore.

In 2020, she was promoted to head mixologist at both SKAI Bar and SKAI Restaurant, situated in Singapore’s five-star Swissôtel The Stamford.

Home sweet home

In 2022, Demi decided to return to Indonesia and take on her biggest gig to date: Joining Tavern Group Semarang and spearheading a project slated for launch in the third quarter of the year. While she had been offered multiple bartending jobs at the time, ultimately she decided that it was time to return to her roots.

“Somehow I kept thinking, like, ‘Why don’t I try my country first?’ The company here has a good vision also. I just feel aligned with them,” she gushed.

It has been around eight years since Demi embarked on her career path, and she has come home not only with a plethora of awards, but also a family of fellow bartenders and mixologists that continue to support each other on their journeys.

“Basically, I have a family around the world now,” she said.

Bannie Kang, Demi’s mentor and the Diageo World Class 2019 global champion, commended her growth as a bartender and mixologist.

“Demi has a bubbly and friendly personality. She always has that perseverance, passion and ambition toward her profession that makes her excellent in what she is doing now,” Kang said.

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