Your guide to Australian craft spirits & Melbourne's cocktail culture
I fell in love last week. She was a redhead. We first met at Waterslide bar. Our matchmaker was venue manager Tim Wastell. They say Rockford‘s 2015 Alicante Bouchet from the Barossa Valley tastes of cherries, but to my (rather uneducated) palette it’s more like old-fashioned strawberries and cream lollies from the […]
Here’s my pick of the new Melbourne drinking establishments to hunt out soon & some new drinkables. — Alby Tomassi (Feast of Merit) and chef Paul Wilson’s Lady Carolina isn’t just about Latin American eats. There’s a focus on pisco (if you’re lucky served in a rather cool cocoa pod) […]
What’s your most evocative Summer memory? Is it frolicking on the beach with your best friend, swinging in a hammock with your loved one, running through sprinklers with your siblings? Perhaps you recall catching that wave, slurping an epic scoop of melting ice-cream or making an art work out of the neon […]
What does a $4,699 bottle of whisky taste like? Collectors and devotees now have a limited chance to find out as Chivas Regal unleashes just 30 of 2015’s limited release of 1500 bottles of its new luxury blend – ‘The Icon‘ – on Australian shores. The Icon is the whisky […]
Imbibing Espresso Martinis on tap while sandwiched between Flinders Street Station and the Yarra River: we have officially reached peak Melbourne! Opening six months ago, Arbory has only just (finally!) launched their official cocktail list; coinciding with the anniversary of the first steam-train to depart the now-defunct Sandridge railway line from which […]
If you’ll excuse the obscure (and bastardized) Simpsons reference: everything’s coming up Mill House. Thus far, the new Flinders Lane bar weaves a delicate balance between a foodie bar and late night club. The spacious bar is situated in the heritage Tomasetti House building, the lower five levels of which […]
Did you know Melbourne used to have a giant motorised water chute that you could ride by the Yarra? In the early 1900’s, Melburnian thrill seekers would zip down the wooden construction – in all of their plumage and finery no less – to splash down and aquaplane across a pool […]
Here’s who has been moving and shaking in the Melbourne bar scene in the past month. — – Setting up shop next door to St Ali is new wine bar, Smalls. Now you can happily go from morning to evening without leaving Yarra Place. South Melbourne – If Heartbreaker is […]
The dive bar aesthetic has overtaken the long-standing “granny’s living room” look as the trend du jour at the bohemian end of the bar design spectrum. Sometimes that can feel contrived. After all, true dives are just places that exist! They aren’t really designed intentionally to attract rabble-rousers and scoundrels […]
In case you missed it, I recently introduced new South Melbourne wine bar Smalls for The Urban List. — No neon signs. No espresso martinis. No nonsense. That’s the deal at new South Melbourne wine bar, Smalls. The embargo on “done to death” neon was written into the design brief […]