Make good choices when mixing with cocktail movers and shakers

Don’t leave the choice of a mixed drink to a description on a menu, ask a waiter or the person who tends the bar.

“Bartending is an old and honourable trade. It is not a profession and I have no sympathy with those who try to make it anything but what it was. The idea of calling a bartender a professor or a mixologist is nonsense.”

Patrick Gavin Duffy

The Official Mixer’s Manual, 1934

“What’ll you have?”

It’s fair to say that Bartender’s Choice is what makes The Everleigh experience so special.

When I opened the bar in 2011 in Melbourne, I was haunted by the all-too-familiar scenario ­encountered when ordering a drink in a “cocktail bar”. You know, the one where the customer is faced with a drinks menu the size of War and Peace, which they spend an eternity reading before eventually ordering a cocktail that they probably won’t even like.

Perish the thought.

At New York’s Milk & Honey we avoided this entire awkward ­affair by having no menu at all, ­allowing every encounter with a customer to be a wholly personal and unique experience. At The ­Everleigh, we believe the most ­important thing is getting to know our customers. To do this, we ­have to provide an environment where they can relax and enjoy themselves.

We spend more time here than we do anywhere else, so needless to say it’s a space in which we feel at home. Our goal is to make everyone else feel the same way, even if it’s just for one night.

All the magic here happens on the floor. The server you chat to as they top up your water will be the person telling the bartender which cocktail to make for you. The difference in The Everleigh experience is that we want to make sure you’re drinking exactly what you want to drink. The success of Bartender’s Choice relies on us understanding what you want out of your evening — even if you don’t quite know what that is! That’s OK. That’s the fun of it all.

So get comfy and tell us what you like, or perhaps it’s easier to tell us what you don’t like. Hell, tell us what you had for breakfast! Allow us to listen. Allow yourself to be surprised.

No big menu, no words you can’t pronounce, no efforts to make you feel uncomfortable. Just a few questions.

So, tell me, are you after something tall, did you say?

SAZERAC
There are four drinks that made me fall so deeply in love with cocktails — the Sazerac, the Gin Gin Mule, the New York Flip and the Montreal Sour. This drink really is a masterpiece. The original called for cognac instead of rye, and the brand of cognac used was called Sazerac — hence the name. Today the most popular version calls for rye whiskey. If a mixture of rye and cognac is used, we call it a New York Sazerac.

60 ml (2 fl oz) rye whiskey

1 white sugar cube

3 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters

absinthe, to rinse

lemon twist, to garnish

Add the sugar cube and bitters to a mixing glass. Crush the cube with a muddler and add rye. Add ice and stir.

Fill a Sazerac glass with crushed ice to chill. Empty the ice, then rinse with the absinthe and drain (or drink). Strain the drink into the glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

The lemon twist is essential but as Stanley Clisby Arthur declared in his 1937 text, Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ’em, “do not commit the sacrilege of dropping the peel into the drink”. Squeeze the twist over the top of the drink to expel the oils, then lay it across the top of the glass.

This is an edited extract from A Spot at the Bar: Welcome to The Everleigh, by Michael Madrusan & Zara Young, published by Hardie Grant ($45).
The Everleigh, Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, Victoria. theeverleigh.com