Victoria’s best bars: 13 great places to grab a drink
FROM DIY cocktails to a tipple in the heavens and gluten-free beer to one of Mornington Peninsula’s best wines, we’ve uncovered the hottest places to drink across Victoria.
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FROM DIY cocktails to a tipple in the heavens and gluten-free beer to one of Mornington Peninsula’s best wines, we’ve uncovered the hottest places to drink across Victoria.
COCKTAILS AT LONG CHIM
So you’ve come to David Thompson’s Long Chim to see if you can hack for the chicken larp — and now that you have, you’ll need something to take your mind off all that mind-bending pepper/chilli heat. Luckily, they shake a mean cocktail that does more than just put out the fires (though some of which are firestarters themselves). Whether the rum-spiked pineapple/passionfruit Tropic Thunder, a vodka-boozy Pomelo Spritz, the Bangkok Painkiller with its scoop of mandarin sorbet, or the dancing spice of the gin-based Thai Basil Smash, there’s great cocktails here that slake and placate. Pull up a stool on the balcony and sip while smouldering. DS
ROCK STAR SOMMELIER
“Musicians are always hanging out in bars ... sort of goes with the territory,’’ says Cameron Muncey, lead guitarist with Melbourne band Jet.
But this rocker — who reunited with band mates to support Bruce Springsteen’s recent Australasian tour — is really serious about wine. So serious, he’s studied the subject and signed on as a sommelier at Fitzroy’s Tanner + Teague.
At this multi-level concept store on Brunswick St, equipped with a ground floor wine bar, Muncey can often be found pouring top drops for customers as they peruse cool garments designed by husband and wife designers Kyleigh and Sam Fisher.
“I’m thinking half bottles of Roederer as well,’’ he says. “How good would that be?”. SP
MICHELEDAS AT HOTEL JESUS
Bloody Marys are so yesterday. The coolest kid on the cocktail block, thanks to hot spot Hotel Jesus, is a Michelada, a spicy Mexican tomato-and-beer drink. Over ice in a salt-rimmed glass, lime juice is splashed with a shake or two of Maggi and worstershire sauce and half filled with tomato juice. An icy cold beer is served on the side to top to taste. It’s all the five food groups in a cold drink — what’s not to love? Oh, and the tacos are pretty fine here too. DS
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HURDLE CREEK
Three years in the planning and opening last March, Milawa-based Hurdle Creek is a small batch gin distillery with a difference. Using a base spirit distilled from barley and oats, locally grown botanicals are used to create the small range that includes the Yardarm, a New World style distilled gin characterised by local citrus, lemon myrtle, pink peppercorns and hops, and Evolution, a novel gin with aniseed botanicals including star anise, liquorice and fennel.
“We’ve also got a cocoa liqueur, a cherry gin and an aniseed myrtle ‘Australian pastis’ in the pipeline for release in the coming months,” says distiller Simon Brooke-Taylor. Cheers to that. DS
PALE ALE BY TWO BIRDS
Australia’s first female beer-brewing duo Jayne Lewis and Danielle Allen have been brewing up a storm at their Spotswood Brewery, and demand for their Two Birds beers has grown such that they have recently expanded both the brewery capacity and their range. The newest, Pale, is a New World-style pale ale brewed with two types of oats, and joins their popular Taco, Golden and Sunset ales. With capacity to produce more than 2 million litres of beer a year, these Two Birds are flying high. DS
DIY COCKTAILS AT HOPSCOTCH
Take the bull by the horns at Southbank watering hole Hopscotch with three types of cocktail kits, made by you and serving two. Rev up with espresso martinis (coffee, vodka and Kahlua), cool down with pina coladas (Bacardi, pineapple, coconut cream, lime) or splice it up with a Southside (gin, lime juice and mint) to impress with your shaken-and-stirred talents. MM
COMPTOIR CELLAR AND BAR
Its pronounced ‘commtwar’ and it means ‘counter’ in French. But the smart sommeliers behind Comptoir in Collingwood just want you to come in and “have a glass of something delicious with some tasty food.’’
Tim Sacklin and David Lawler (both ex-Rockpool Bar and Grill), opened their convivial Stanley Street ‘cellar and bar’ late last year and bring a combined 40 years of fine dining experience to the job. So, be assured they will find the perfect wine to go with your Olasagasti anchovies, Cuca sardines and wagyu bresaola. SP
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GOOD HEAVENS
Are you ‘Pretty in Pink’ or more inclined to ‘Electric Blue’?
The choice is yours when you order cocktails at Good Heavens, a new rooftop bar above US-style hotspot Fancy Hanks on Bourke Street. The vibe is described as ‘Palm Springs meets Miami’ — well suited to cheeseburgers and brisket nachos — and there’s room for 200 party people. So, ascend to Good Heavens ... and find the cocktail colour that suits. SP
O’BRIENS GLUTEN-FREE BEER
Gluten intolerant? No worries, you can still imbibe with O’Brien Beer’s gluten-free range.
The Ballarat brewer is the nation’s biggest maker of gluten-free ale with nine to choose from, more than any other gluten-free brewery in the world. There were no homegrown gluten-free beers on the market when founder John O’Brien was diagnosed with coeliac disease so he decided to fix it, brewing with GF grains sorghum and millet. Even non gluten dodgers like the brews, claiming they don’t get the dreaded beer bloat. MM
BIFF TANNIN’S
The fabulously named Biff Tannin’s (nodding to after Michael J Fox’s antagonist in Back to the Future) is a new wine and whisky bar in Brunswick, where drinkers help themselves to a great range of changing local wines poured from temperature-controlled enomatic dispensers by the taste, half or full glass. This is complemented by an extensive selection of whiskies — a few from here, most from afar — that line the shelves behind the bar. A short offering of pizza and antipasto, local crafties on tap and a warm and welcoming vibe seal the deal. DS
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BAR JOSEPHINE
Footscray’s cool cred continues apace, with Bar Josephine the latest to add some clever craft beer bar styles to the quickly changing suburb. With a dozen ever-changing craft beers on tap — both hyper local and international — along with a few well chosen (and made cocktails) and a cracking courtyard to boot this month-old bar, with quirky ephemera on the walls and eclectic (and electric) vinyl on the turntable, seems to be already winning over the west, one delicious pint at a time. DS
295 Barkly St, Footscray
QUEALY FRIULANO
It’s high honour indeed: one of just eight Australian white wines listed on The Fat Duck’s wine list, Quealy’s Turbul friulano is also on the list at Dinner by Heston here in Melbourne — the only Aussie wine to make both lists. An Italian grape variety pioneered by Quealy on their Mornington Peninsula estate (first planting in 2004), friulano is transformed by winemaker Tom McCarthy into a modern, natural wine using extended fermentation on skins, with versions matured in barrel and amphora. Creamy and exotic and a little bit cloudy, it’s a bright wine full of interest. DS
PATRICK SULLIVAN FOR MFWF
He’s the darling of the (new) drinking set, a winemaker for whom good drinking comes naturally. A champion of the direct relationship between how a grape is grown to the wine it produces, Patrick Sullivan has created two minimal intervention wines exclusively for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. From a dry-grown, 40-year-old vineyard in Neerim South, Sullivan has made a pinot noir (called Volcan Springs) and a chardonnay-pinot gris blend called Ada, both of which will be poured on tap at the House of Food and Wine, the hub of the 10-day festival that starts on March 31. DS
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