Meet the team: Jonas Gustav Ax
- Robert Gilliland
- May 30, 2018
- 3 min read
A big welcome to our new Viking guy, you will see floating around Drift.
We wanted to know a little bit more about him ourselves, so we decided to do a little Q&A session together. Check it out!

Q: Whats your current favourite drink and liquor?
JA: All time favourite spirit is rum, as for as cocktails go it's a proper Daiquiri for sure!
Q: What’s the most interesting thing you’ve read or seen this week?
JA: That Toto - Africa has been scientifically proven to be the 'best song in the world'.. Whatever that means..
Q: What’s the most useless talent you have?
JA: I can snap my fingers like a proud American woman who need no man!
Q: If your life was a movie, what songs would be on the soundtrack?
JA: Focus, Hocus pocus.
Q: If your five-year-old self suddenly found themselves inhabiting your current body, what would your five-year-old self do first?
JA: Freak out as to what all this facial hair is about.
Q: If you were arrested with no explanation, what would your friends and family assume you had done?
JA: Smuggle some exotic animal into Brunei whilst pretending to be Indiana Jones, or just drunk and disorderly.
Q: What is the funniest joke you know by heart?
JA: What's the difference between people from Dubai and people from Abu Dhabi? The people from Dubai don't know about The Flintstones, but the people from Abu Dhabi-doooooooo!
Q: Dog or Cat?
JA: I'm a cat person for sure, it's nice to have yet another living being not care about you.
Q: What’s something everyone should experience at least once in their life?
JA: Travelling alone to a different country and culture, it makes all the difference in life.
Q: If you could pick up any one instrument and instantly be a virtuoso at it, what instrument would you choose?
JA: A pretty vanilla answer right here, but for sure piano, or maybe the violin.
Q: What would an exact opposite of you be like?
JA: Sober, healthy, narrow-minded and a complete bore :)
Q: Ok, go on, tell us more about your background and how you came to be in KL?
JA: I'm from northern Sweden, a small town no one ever heard about. I left there when I was 19 and headed to Spain (Valencia and Barcelona) working any shitty job I could find. After 2.5. years I left for London and got into bar-tending.
I started out in a chain of high volume cocktail bars in central London, I stayed with them for 2.5 years rising to the position of area bartender trainer (train the new bartenders in the company).
On New Years eve I was bar-tending in one of their bars in the "Bank" area when the General Manager for Mahiki Dubai offered me a job on the spot, obviously me being slightly tipsy also accepted the job on the spot.
2 weeks later I found myself in Dubai working as a bartender in one of the worlds most famous Tiki Cocktail bars, there I learned more about bar-tending, rum, and having more fun in general than I've learned anywhere else. The talent in that bar alone was humbling and i soaked up all I could.
I stayed in Dubai for 2 years and rose to head bartender until the company opened up a new bar in London called Steam and Rye, a probation era style whiskey and cocktail bar and live music venue, that held me for one year more in the company until I went through a breakup and got a job offer in KL.
In KL I've ran Calavera on Jalan Mesui next to Pisco bar, from that I went on to manage Ril's Bangsar and open Cow&Chicken, a french style restaurant in Hartamas, and Shelley Yu's in Bangsar, all for the same company.
After I left that company, I was the Operational Manager for Elysium Bar & Terrace on Jalan Raja Chulan, it it came time for me to leave Elysium. I met Rob (Drift Dining and Bar, MD) and he offered me a job in Drift, and here I am!
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Coming to you, a wicked set of cocktail master classes by none other than Jonas Ax.
The first beginning next month, June 10th and 17th. Sundays from 4-6pm. To find out more information and book your spot send us an email.
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