![]() ![]() At Uncle Mings, it’s top-shelf Japanese whiskey and top-notch cocktails served in Chinese tea cups. It was warm and convivial in this basement space, and I didn’t want to leave, but after a mere longing glance at the drink menu (mostly beer, with a few simple cocktail options), we were off. The rockabilly-styled bartenders wore black, 45s decorated the wall above the bar, and rock ‘n roll blasted. First stop: Mojo Record Bar, with a sort of East Village-when-it-was-still-punk vibe and an actual vinyl shop up front. Sydney’s CBD teems with small bars, so we set off for a whirlwind look at these. Our arrangement suited me ideally: Martin led us (on foot and then in his car) and did the talking, while I, like a good reporter, drank and took notes. #HIDDEN BAR CULTURE SYDNEY PLUS#“We’ve really breathed new life into the laneway,” O’Sullivan reflects.Īfter sampling a few cocktails at Grasshopper, including a unique combo of fresh strawberries, Bulleit bourbon and da hong pao (a Chinese tea), plus some tasty Asian bites, the best of which was a sort of cumin-spiced mu shu lamb served with thin pancakes, it was time for the tour. But the longtime bartender’s instincts were correct: People did want a semi-hidden spot to drink where they could spill out to al fresco tables in the alley. When he and his partner Belinda Lai (who also happens to be his wife), plus one more business partner, decided on a former printing shop down a back alley, friends thought they were nuts. ![]() “Seven or eight years ago when we heard the laws were changing, we started looking for a laneway,” O’Sullivan told me. Happily, he offered to lead me to there since I would’ve been hard-pressed to find the place myself, secluded as it is down (no joke) Temperance Lane. I met up with the affable and energetic O’Sullivan’s near his Asian-themed bar-restaurant The Grasshopper, another hidden drinking establishment in the Central Business District (CBD). ![]() Short on time but determined to get a feel for the city’s robust and growing small bar scene, I enlisted the help of Martin O’Sullivan, president of the New South Wales Small Bar Association and a co-owner himself of two bars. The tincture is served before any cocktails and is intended to “refresh the palate, since a lot of customers come in after a meal,” an employee explained.Īs I learned a few nights later, $19 is actually on the low end of prices at Sydney’s high-end cocktail bars, where drinks often range from 20 to 25 Aussie dollars (roughly $16-$20). If I was suffering from sticker shock over my 19 Aussie dollars ($15.60) cocktail – a Phillips on-the-fly creation of pomelo, bourbon, star anise and cinnamon – at least I enjoyed the freebie that’s presented to all drinkers, a tonic made with pastis, bitters, vermouth, sugar, and soda water. Not so typically, it doesn’t have a menu: instead bartenders scout daily seasonal ingredients and scrawl the night’s half-dozen cocktails du jour on a roll of butcher paper. In typical fashion for drinkeries of this ilk, Bulletin Place is tough to find and doesn’t take reservations, relying instead on the charmingly phrased policy “first in, best dressed” (Aussie speak for “first come, first served”). The team did the build-out themselves: “We spent more on ice machines than we did on furniture,” he told me, gesturing around the spare space decked out with reclaimed this-and-that. That’s what Phillips and his partners did two years ago with Bulletin Place, an intimate second-floor barroom tucked up the stairs of an old building on one of Sydney’s back laneways. “It allowed operators to put our heads together and open something.” 19 in the world, according to Drinks International’s 2014 list). “It changed the landscape completely,” recalls Tim Phillips, co-owner and bartender at Bulletin Place, Sydney’s most lauded cocktail bar (and No. However, new legislation that year made it suddenly easier to open so-called small bars (with a capacity of 120 people or fewer), and Sydney’s cocktail scene burst open. #HIDDEN BAR CULTURE SYDNEY LICENSE#Until that point, nightlife in Australia’s most populous town had been dominated mostly by large operations who could handle the hefty licensing fees and complex bureaucracy of securing a liquor license pre-2008, drinking choices were generally pubs or cavernous clubs. Hinky Dinks serves spiked milkshakes and tropical drinks that reference the 1950s.īy the time 2008 rolled around, the cocktail revival was already peaking in many cities around the globe - yet not Sydney. ![]()
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