Old Hawkie was the key attraction at the opening of this new Balmain bar on the site of the old trades and labourers hall from the 1890’s. Indeed the bar takes it cues from Balmain’s long history with the Labor party, and the images of Labor leaders of the past adorn the ceiling.
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Aromatic bitters: it is a trickier category for tastings than most, and requires a little more experience as bartender than do other drinks categories. Just as well we were at the Hazy Rose, in Darlinghurst. We sourced a surprise for this the issue, with the Hazy Rose crew among the first bartenders in Australia to get their hands on the Dale DeGroff Pimento Bitters.
Open in time for the rush of festive season champagne sales is this new brasserie and bar in the Rocks. The bar is decked out in 1920s décor and inspired by the French Mediterranean and the eponymous pineapple (ananas being the French word for it).
There aren’t many iconic Australian brands that have enjoyed such an illustrious and colourful history than that of Bundaberg Rum. It all started in 1888, when a group of enterprising sugar millers decided to do something about a surplus of molasses trickling from the cane fields of Bundaberg…
Ardbeg, purveyors of peaty pleasures from Islay, have become the first Scottish distillery to conduct experiments in space.
One of the great things about Sydney Bar Week is all the amazing talent that jets into town for the week-long celebration of the booze biz. So we took the chance to sit down with two of Pernod Ricard’s finest and here’s what they have to say…
Bartenders might want to start stocking up on their favourite gins judging by the size…
The QT hotel brand has opened their Sydney flagship location, complete with three high-quality bars over different floors and some significant Sydney talent. The emphasis on quality extends further than just your usual hotel bar fare, with the team using house-made ingredients where possible.
We’re well versed in the spate of small bar openings that have taken over Sydney and other capital cities (yes Melbourne, you did it first) but there isn’t a lot we hear about the trend flowering beyond the major cities.
Sure, there’s Goldfish in the Hunter Valley. Now, thanks to the arrival of Fox Bar in Maitland there are the nascent beginnings of a Hunter Valley small bar tour – though someone is going to have to drive.
What’s that? An invitation to smash as many of their “death sentence wings” as you can in just twelve minutes? And American craft brews feature in their Sunday “crafternoon” special?
With lyrics that seem contradictory and oblique, Roxy Music’s 1972 debut single Virginia Plain might seem an odd source inspiration for a bar’s moniker.
But look at the drink menu and the kitchen fare and things start to make sense.
Q.F.s, B52s and Slippery Nipples were some of the first drinks I learnt behind the bar whilst pouring pints at a beer barn in south-eastern England. What I wasn’t aware of at the time was that I was making a Parisian café drink popular in mid-19th century America.