Hans’ Signature Cocktail: State of Paradise 🇨🇳🇮🇹🇳🇱

Agape Distilled and Mixed – State of Paradise
The 1st P.A.N.D.A Silk Road Spirits Cocktail
Proost voor tijd en connectie / A Toast to Time and Connection

Every cocktail Hans creates is a tribute to real cultural encounters. No romanticized legends—just stories rooted in trade routes, shared grains, and human history.

🍸 State of Paradise - 天府之国

🗿 From Ancient Faces to Liquid Stories

In 1929, something extraordinary was unearthed in Sichuan, China: the Sanxingdui ruins.

The bronze masks they found—huge, hollow-eyed, majestic—didn’t resemble anything from the Central Plains.

They came from another world, another imagination: the ancient Kingdom of Shu.

This discovery pushed back the timeline of human civilization in southwest China to over 3,800 years ago, and most importantly, it showed us something profound:

Chinese civilization is not singular—it is plural, diverse, and converging.

🌍 From Martino Martini to the Mythical Shu

Surprisingly, the very first person to propose that China had 5,000 years of continuous civilization was not Chinese, but an Italian Jesuit missionary, Martino Martini, in the 17th century. He came from Trento, the very birthplace of Grappa.

In the 1650s, while living in China under the Shunzhi Emperor, Martini studied Chinese history and introduced it to Europe with respect and wonder.

He didn’t have archaeology—but he had curiosity, language, and faith.

🥃 A Drink Across Three Civilizations

Today, I present to you a cocktail that connects:

• The ancient rituals of Shu
• The Italian soul of Grappa, and
• The Dutch gateway where Chinese Baijiu began its global journey.

This is “State of Paradise 天府之国” — a cultural blend in liquid form.

🍹The Recipe

• Shuntun®️ Baijiu (浓香型白酒, from Mianzhu) – 30ml
• Grappa (Italian pomace brandy) – 15ml
• Lucas Bols Blue Curaçao – 30ml
• Fresh Lime Juice – 30ml
• Fever-Tree Ginger Beer – 115ml
• Garnish: Square-cut ginger slice, symbolizing the gold-plated bronze masks
• Mixxing: Stir

✨Flavor Story

On the first sip: the sharpness of lime collides with the warm bite of ginger.

Then comes the layered fire of Baijiu, with a nostalgic echo of Grappa—

as if Sichuan and Trentino whispered across time.

The vibrant blue reflects the Dutch seas, while the ginger square recalls the faceplates of Sanxingdui.

It is not just a cocktail. It is a communion of civilizations.

‼️About The “Bartender”

Voice for Reconciliation in a Divided World

Food and Drink at a Table (FDT) is an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) model introduced by Hans Ngo Wurfbain to over 100 judges, lawyers, and mediators from over 30 countries at a UN conference in Geneva in 2023. While litigation is costly and slow, and arbitration merely costly but faster, mediation often fails to address deeper value conflicts and vision misalignments. FDT brings people back to the table—not just to negotiate, but to rediscover humility, mutual understanding, and a shared future. It invites not compromise, but communion, grounded in trust, vision, and co-creation.

This is not just dispute resolution. It is destiny reconciliation.

The Hottest Man from Chengdu, living in Utrecht

Over 500 locals in the Netherlands—from alumni circles to international churches, spanning cities from Groningen to Maastricht—as well as a notable number of Italians from Rome, Colle di Val d’Elsa, Siena, Florence, Bologna, and Milan, have tasted the culinary creations of Hans Ngo Wurfbain.

He is affectionately known as “the hottest man from Chengdu living in Utrecht”, not only for the spice in his dishes but for the warmth he brings to the table.

Hans never charges a cent for cooking. He cooks entirely as a volunteer, because he believes that food and drink are vessels of real communion, where people are united not only by flavors, but by friendship, memory, and grace.

📜 One Note — A Toast Across Time

To Martino Martini,

who had the courage to proclaim what few dared to imagine—

that China holds a 5,000-year story worth telling to the world.

To Sanxingdui,

which rose from the soil to show that this story was never just a legend, but the echo of a deep, ancient civilization.

To the Netherlands,

a land of open minds and fearless entrepreneurship, where dreams transcend borders and beautiful visions take root.

And to Shuntun Baijiu,

presented by P.A.N.D.A, a spirit that carries this legacy forward—glass by glass, soul to soul. This is more than a drink. It is a liquid memory of human connection.

The grains used in Baijiu speak of ancient trade and shared origins:

Sorghum arrived in China over 4,000 years ago from northeastern Africa.
Wheat came from Central Asia, rice and glutinous rice are native to China,
and maize, surprisingly, journeyed from South America around 500 years ago.
The distillation method itself was introduced from the Middle East about a millennium ago.
And to finish, we age it in unglazed clay jars, letting time and nature speak for themselves.

The result?

A crystal-clear spirit, fermented by microbes, matured by silence, free of additives, yet full of stories.

Because whether we know it or not, whether we believe it or not, the destinies of human beings have been intertwined since long before history learned to write.

Finally, to a very important person to me from the Royal Family of the Netherlands, who has encouraged me to embrace my vision. This is another topic in future.

This is not just a drink.

It is a message — from the past, for the future.

Hans Ngo Wurfbain
A man on a mission to bridge East and West
Founder of the most eco-friendly company in the Netherlands — powered entirely by a man on a bicycle, consuming just 47ml of petrol-equivalent per 100 km, with a total mileage of 6,900 km across the Netherlands between May 2024 and March 2025. And the trip is still going on.