Features

Features

New York City

God, I love this town! I wish I could live here for a few months each year, as a few days it’s just not enough to do anything but just scratch the surface of this great city. I would go as far to say it’s the most exciting city in the world with the best of everything, especially when it comes to eating and drinking, all packed in on this not-so-little island.

Cocktail ice worth talking about

Who would have thought that all those years ago Vanilla Ice was onto something? Ice, baby – it’s all about ice these days in the cocktail world. And heaven help you if your bar’s ice isn’t pure, completely pristine in appearance and can’t sit in a glass of at least four hours without melting.

The Widow’s Kiss Cocktail

Along with knowing how to play barrelhouse piano or sing rowdy Irish songs knowing how to mix a few top-notch cocktails is a skill guaranteed to get a party started, writes David Wondrich.

Brandy’s Best

Check out the great selection of brandy cocktails featured in the July issue of Australian Bartender magazine. Thanks to all the bartenders who sent through their drinks – keep them coming!

Scotch: The Finest A Nation Can Offer

There are two distinct camps of Scotch whisky; Single Malt Scotch and Blended Scotch. The latter is the relative new kid on the block, only coming into existence since the ability to continuously distil spirits was available due to the advent of the Continuous still in 1831.

Milk & Honey, London

Now unless you have a Toblerone on your cocktail list and chocolate buttons in your garnish trays you will likely have heard of Milk & Honey – only one of the greatest bars to have lived.

Internationalist: On your best behavior Part I

I promise this won’t be another bullshit piece about how we should all throw away our mobile phones and go back to the days when an evening’s entertainment consisted of standing around the piano singing vaudeville songs before a spot of light incest and some pipe smoking.

Auckland’s Finest

Long before ‘small bar’ was the industry catch phrase in Australia, Auckland had small bars without the inverted commas. And small bars will continue to open in the City of Sails. It has very little to do with the fact that they’re trendy and more to do with practicality and lower overheads.

Porter and Stout

The Strong Black Stuf: A Clearly Opaque Debate By Edward Washington For the untrained eye…

The Bitter Histories

We know from the earliest boozers that it was a variation on a Sling – spirits, water and sugar and included the miracle ingredient bitters. So what bitters was it?

A Tipple in Tokyo

After a whirlwind trip to the land of the rising sun I can safely say that Tokyo is one city that everyone who loves their food and great cocktail bars must visit at least once in their lifetime. To sum up I would say Tokyo bars are fantastic – they are disciplined, quirky, interesting and just bloody different! All in all a great trip.