It’s that time of year again, when bartenders across Australia start thinking about whether they’ll…
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“Ever since Ivan the Terrible cobbled together the various tsardoms and proclaimed himself Tsar of All the Russias, vodka has girded the seat of power.”
The space behind St James station on Hyde Park, Sydney, is finally seeing some action. “The name is Metro St James,” said French owner Phillipe Valet (La Brasserie, Surry Hills). “I just want to start with a nice wine and aperitif bar and build it slowly,” he said of the open-air space, which can be enclosed by large, bi-fold doors.
Indeed, the great boozer, Sir Kingsley Amis, once wrote: “I think the nastiest drink I’ve ever drunk in my life was some stuff called mezcal in a Mexican market town.” But that has all changed.
Scotch whisky gets a lot of the world’s attention in the global spirits market. But it’s not the only game in town and when it comes to mixing drinks and creating cocktails, bartenders seem to be turning to Irish whiskey more and more – partly due to its mixability (as we’ll see below) but also because it is a category that has been underdeveloped in Australia until recently, with the arrival of Redbreast and Writer’s Tears in addition to the forthcoming Green Spot.
With a list put together by Matt Hewitt (ex-The Bowery, where he won Bar Manager of the Year in the 2007 Australian Bar Awards) cocktails are front and centre at this Brisbane bar.
Many a bartender in Australia has tried to track this brand down, often to no avail. Think Spirits have now secured distribution for these quality mezcals, of which a fair share of the attention given to mezcal these days can be attributed to.
There was a time – not that long ago – when bars were filled with the sound of whirring metal blades blitzing ice and fruit and booze; a time when the cocktail glasses were large, the drinks coloured bright, and the bartender was the boss of the blender.
It is the lone brand to come from the ‘whiskey bonding’ era in Ireland and will be more readily available in the coming months. A single pot still Irish whiskey, it is comprised of pot still whiskeys aged between 7 and 10 years.
Living in today’s fast-paced, online world when something is trendy it spreads like the plague. Take the fashion industry, for example, one day an outfit is on the catwalk, it’s copied and sold everywhere, and a few weeks later everyone is wearing it.
The team behind Lily Blacks (nominated for Best Bartender’s Bar at Bartender’s Australian Bar Awards) are wowing Melbourne boozehounds with new bar, Mr. Wow’s Emporium. Exposed brick walls and long wooden tables and a curved bar house a wowing drinks program.
Andy Griffiths, one time bar manager at Melbourne’s award winning Cookie, has finally given us the inside word on what he has been up to since giving up his post last year. Griffiths has been busy planning the bar for Mesa Verde a new venue opening in Melbourne next month.