Horlicks

I saunter into the kopitiam and become the first person in 20 years to order a Horlicks. A regular, unhip hot Horlicks.

The youngish coffeeshop assistant from China has not heard of Horlicks, naturally. The old dude at the counter who makes the drinks invokes the inventory list and notes that the last record of Horlicks stock sits on a yellowed page dated January 1986. That particular tin was already 6 months past its expiry date when it was last opened in 1987. If you can’t fathom how long ago that is, it is the same year an English movie called Short Circuit (starring Steve Guttenberg, the actor who looks like Lee Hsien Loong) was released.

He procures the tin from a special place where no expendables are housed. It has long transcended its status as an expendable item and is now a relic, a memento, and a reminder of a time past. He pries it open half-hoping to see fragments of memory but all he gets is crusty, unrecognizable Horlicks.

Horlicks chunks are heaped into the glass by way of a spoon-spade hybrid. Boiling water gives it life. It returns to form. It's magic. He sheds a nostalgic tear and it ends up somewhere in the mix too.

For 90 cents, I get a serving of history. Too easy. I decide to swing by the ice cream shop in Shaw Towers for Horlicks ice cream. Yes Horlicks ice cream.

Overkill, you say. But what's really important to note here is how people have not let the Horlicks legacy wither. Expired Horlicks is not forgotten but made into ice cream. And with the cryogenic treatment, its lifespan is extended indefinitely.