Dewar’s Discoveries Introduces 50 Mixologists To The Craft Of Jaipur Blue Pottery

Dewar’s Discoveries takes 50 Indian mixologists across Jaipur, Kolkata, Goa, Bengaluru and Delhi to explore the people, crafts, traditions and places shaping each city. In the Jaipur edition, they visit Shilp Guru Gopal Saini’s Ram Gopal Blue Pottery workshop to discover the craft’s history, freehand techniques and enduring influence, drawing parallels between the artistry of pottery and cocktail-making.Dewar’s Discoveries brings 50 Indian mixologists across Jaipur, Kolkata, Goa, Bengaluru and Delhi to meet the people, crafts, traditions and places shaping each city, and turn those encounters into inspiration for their cocktails. In Jaipur, the series takes them into the city’s blue pottery tradition, where centuries-old techniques, hand-painted designs and the patience of craft offer a different way to think about what goes into a drink. The visit centres on Shilp Guru Gopal Saini’s Ram Gopal Blue Pottery, connecting the work of an artisan with the work of a mixologist.

Ram Gopal Blue Pottery was founded by Gopal Saini in 1993 after he trained under Padma Shri Kripal Singh Shekhawat, who helped revive Jaipur’s blue pottery in the 1960s. The craft itself has Persian roots and is unusual for its use of quartz stone powder instead of traditional clay. At the studio, each piece goes through more than 40 hand processes, from shaping and glazing to freehand painting, with Saini and his daughter Garima Saini now carrying the practice forward. Saini has also spent decades training new artisans and finding ways to keep the craft relevant.

For the mixologists, the similarities with cocktail-making start to become pretty obvious once they see the process up close. Every piece is painted by hand, with colours, patterns and layers coming together to make something that can look completely different from where it started. The mixologists compare this to building a drink: the base might be the same, but the way you combine ingredients, play with layers and present the final glass changes the result. Saini’s approach also gets them thinking about techniques that can disappear when a craft stops being actively passed down, something the mixologists recognise from their own world.

The Jaipur discovery ultimately becomes a lesson in sticking with a craft while still leaving room to experiment. Blue pottery nearly disappeared from the city before its revival, and Saini’s work has helped keep its techniques and knowledge in circulation while allowing the art to evolve through new colours, forms and designs. For the mixologists, that balance between inherited knowledge and individual expression offers its own ideas for the bar. Sometimes, as Dewar’s Discoveries puts it, the interesting story of a city is sitting right there in the hands of someone who has spent a lifetime making things.

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