A magical little number from the Savoy’s godmother of bartending

By Simon McGoram

Photography by Rob Palmer

Bars come and go: Hospitality has ever been a fickle industry. London’s iconic Savoy Hotel, however, and the American Bar along with it (as it was christened 1893) has stood the test of time.

If you are a bit of a cocktail enthusiast too you have no doubt heard of Harry Craddock’s The Savoy Cocktail Book - one of the greatest collections of drinks receipts of all time. Craddock, an American, fled Prohibition in 1920 to take up his craft in London at the Savoy Hotel. The book, first published in 1930, has inducted Craddock and indeed the American Bar into the cocktailian hall of fame, but not all the recipes in this work were created by Craddock - far from it.

Whilst many were borrowed from the great bars, hotels and clubs from around the world a small few also owe their conception to one Ada Coleman or ‘Coley’ as she was know. Coley was a female star in a world of male bartenders and was in no small part responsible for the American Bar’s rise to fame during the first quarter of the 20^th Century. Appointed as bartender in 1903, Coley eventually made head bartender and certainly was so by the time Craddock turned up in 1920. For five years Craddock was forced to remain in anonymity dispensing drinks from the back service bar whilst Ada remained the public face.

During her time at the American Bar, Coley made cocktails for the likes of Mark Twain, the Prince of Wales, Prince Wilhelm of Sweden, and Sir Charles Hawtrey. It was for Sir Hawtrey (the actor and playwright who was mentor to the great Noel Coward) that Coleman invented a beverage going by the name Hanky Panky.

Before you get too excited about the racy name, keep in mind that in Edwardian England the term ‘hanky panky’ didn’t have the same libidinous connotations as it has today, but was rather used to describe black magic or an evil trick. The term comes from the Romani (Gypsy) term ‘hakk’ni panki’ meaning “the great trick” and is similarly linked to another familiar term ‘hocus pocus’.

Luckily for us Gaz Regan has long been a fan of the Hanky Panky and some years ago Gaz and Mardee Haidin Reagan dug up this little gem from England’s The People newspaper from 1925. In this piece Coley herself explains the drinks creation and christening:

“The late Charles Hawtrey … was one of the best judges of cocktails that I knew. Some years ago, when he was overworking, he used to come into the bar and say, ‘Coley, I am tired. Give me something with a bit of punch in it.’ It was for him that I spent hours experimenting until I had invented a new cocktail. The next time he came in, I told him I had a new drink for him. He sipped it, and, draining the glass, he said, ‘By Jove! That is the real hanky-panky!’ And Hanky-Panky it has been called ever since.”

Hanky Panky

45ml Beefeater 24 Gin

45ml Punt e Mes (sweet vermouth)

2 dashes Fernet Branca

Orange Peel

Step One: Add your sweet vermouth

Step Two: Add your gin

Step Three: Add two dashes of Fernet Branca

Step Four: Add ice

Step Five: Stir until diluted

Step Six: Strain into a chilled coupette

Step Seven: Garnish with an orange twist

This cocktail featured in the February 2010 issue of Bartender Magazine. The drink was presented by Natalie Ng from Café Pacifico in Sydney

Upstairs at The Mac,
42 Wentworth Street
Surry Hills, Sydney
02 8262 8888
www.raval.com.au

Ravál located at the top of the stairs above Sydney’s historic Macquarie Hotel (or ‘The Mac’ as it is popularly known) is named after Barcelona’s infamous nightspot El Ravál; an area bordering La Rambla know for its cabaret, nightclubs, and more lascivious businesses of the night. It comes as no surprise then that Ravál is a purpose built entertainment venue and cocktail bar designed to house a variety of live entertainment including music, cabaret, burlesque, theatre and comedy.

Headed up by Nathan Farrell (band Manager for The Ray Mann Three and Thundamentals, music entrepreneur and promoter) and Mandy Wheeler (driving force behind The Mac for close to a decade), that venues tells us that Ravál  ”combines passion for the four senses; touch, taste, sight and sound (fortunately the only funk you’ll smell will be from our speakers) by combining a gorgeous art deco interior and beautifully upholstered furniture reminiscent of a 1930s speakeasy with big rig sound and sumptuous cocktails.”

DJs will be booked by Huw Ellis who comes to Ravál with over ten years experience in the industry with his own ARIA nominated Knowfool label as well as experience in distribution, festivals, publicity, journalism, DJing and radio under his belt.

To find out more about Ravál’s entertainment line up visit their website: www.raval.com.au

Voting is finally opening for the 2010 Bartender Magazine Australian Bar Awards. Head to www.barshow.com.au from March 1 (Monday) to cast your vote for your favourite industry heroes.

2010 marks the 10th anniversary of the Bar Awards and the team here at Bartender magazine can’t think of a better way to mark this occasion than to introduce to you two all new awards!

First up is the Rookie of the Year award. This award aims to recognise up and coming bartending talent in the Australian bar industry. To be eligible for entry you must work in a bar and not have more than two years experience come 31 May 2010.  Head to the www.barshow.com.au for more information.

Secondly we have Best Marketed Venue. As marketing is an increasingly important aspect of a complete bar package, this award recognises the hard work put into bars by their owners and marketing teams to actively promote their venue to the public. Finalists in this category will have a comprehensive marketing strategy encompassing events and promotions as well as traditional and social media outlets.

Get your vote on! The Bartender Magazine Australian Bar Awards voting will be open from 1 March, 2010 through to 31 May, 2010.

229 Darlinghurst Road
Darlinghurst, Sydney
www.eaudevie.com.au

Well it’s here and it’s making waves: Eau-De-Vie, the bar by the dynamic Behind Bars duo - Sven and Amber Almenning, has already been subject to rave consumer reviews - and you thought it would just be an industry bar!

Eau-De-Vie tucked away at the back of the Kirketon Hotel on Darlinghurst road isn’t the sort of gin joint you’d stumble across by chance - I’m going to avoid throwing terms like ‘underground’ and ’speakeasy’ at it because these folks won’t be flying below the radar. And there’s a few of reasons for this: Namely they serve superlative cocktails and great bar food they also have a cracking team delivering stellar service. Finally - and I’m not going to say décor, the amazing range of liquor nor the antique cocktail shakers, glassware and other bar paraphernalia (though this is all dandy too) - what is most striking about this venue is something that the majority of bars in Sydney lack: A bar that you can sit at and engage in good old fashioned conversation with the barkeeps while they mix fine concoctions by skillful manipulation of jigger, beaker and flask.

This lack of seating in proximity to the bar is perhaps endemic of the lack of ’small bars’ Sydney has on offer, but it has lead to culture where it is almost impossible to have a drink by yourself or strike up a conversation with a fellow cocktail imbibing punter. Most bars have their patrons neatly partitioned as far from bar as possible. Not so Eau De Vie where the bar is king - you couldn’t escape it if you tried.

If you do visit plan on staying for a while as the team lead by Barry Chalmers (Ex- The Bowery and Sky Room, Brisbane and the Theme magazine UK Bartender of the Year in 2005) is top notch including Elle Wormald from Tokonoma, Max Greco from Bayswater Brasserie, Phil Gandevia from Victoria Room and Barry’s countryman Calum Lawrie from Edinburgh.

Highlights from the cocktail menu include: The Smoky Rob Roy, which is a mix of Talisker and Lagavulin Scotch whiskies, sweet vermouth and cigar infused Zacapa 23, finished with a mist of Laphroaig quartercask and a bourbon infused cherry; and their signature Dark’n'Stormy made with Havana Club Especial, a proprietary spiced rum mix, house-made ginger beer and “other secret ingredients”. Make sure you check out the “Cocktails for Sharing” section too which includes “The Lady’s Leg Cosmopolitan” served in a Ketel One Citroen with home-made cranberry sorbet and Grand Marnier that’s served in a  Lady’s Leg Cocktail Shaker from the 1930s.

On the culinary side of things, Eau-De-Vie offers a small menu mezze style plates including jamon, buffalo mozzarella and dips by Leigh Laird, formerly of Pyrmont’s Flying Fish. Food certainly isn’t the main focus of the venue but the offerings will keep you imbibing cocktails well into the night.

With summer now in full swing the team here at4bars.com.au and Bartender magazine are getting a mighty thirst on. Every month we get sent some cracking cocktail recipes and menus from all around the country, we get to sample fine potions on our travels and often drink superlative beverages compounded for the country’s top cocktail competitions. Many of these beverages make it into the magazine each month, and others still get uploaded onto this site and if it’s one thing Bartender mag has had some experience in it’s knowing a good drink when we taste one!

In 2010, therefore, Bartender is going to pick the Top Five Cocktails of 2010. We’re going to make up this short list of Australia’s top cocktail drops from the recipe submissions we already have on file, cocktails we’ve tested during our travels and recipes that get submitted to us before 25 March (at smcgoram@spantonmedia.com). Those mixed drinks that make cut we’ll photograph and print in May’s Bartender. The drinks’ creators will not only have the honour of inventing one of 2010’s top cocktails, but will also be awarded a free ticket to the Bartender Magazine Australian Bar Awards gala dinner and after party in September.

Well with all this in mind here’s a couple of things that we’ll be looking for in our Top Five Cocktails:

1. Use alcoholic beverage of your choosing and include any ingredients, homemade or otherwise as long as they these products are available to any bar in Australia (We can’t possible test the beverage if it is impossible to make!).
2. Bartender magazine is looking for a drink that is elegant in its simplicity, but complex in its flavour profile so try to keep the number of ingredients to a minimum: Create a harmony of flavours - not a cacophony!

Good luck and happy mixing!

Things have been tough for bar trade rags in the UK which seems to have been hit harder by the ‘GFC’ than sunny old Australia. CLASS changed hands and went subscription only and Theme closed down too, leaving Imbibe magazine to fight it out on its own in bar trade print media. Enter www.barlifeuk.com stage right - an online bar industry forum that is declaring paper dead (long live the internet).

Barlifeuk.com is the brainchild of a bon vivant going by the name of Andy Ives (ex-CLASS, Industry, Australian Bartender magazine and 4bars.com.au) and offers its readers the latest UK industry news, events and bar openings as well as relevant feature items on how to keep your “Tweets Sweet” or how to capitalise on the upcoming World Cup in South Africa. It’s still early days for this brand spanking new site, but give it month or two and that ‘new car smell’ will be gone to be replaced, no doubt, by a little cigarette smoke, a sticky patch where a shot of Jagger once sat and a couple of questionable stains. Get in there and reserve your spot at the bar… or just subscribe to their e-newsletters.

Tatler are kicking off an all new hospo night this coming Monday (15 Feb) entitled ‘Bloody Mondays’. The evening sponsored by Patron will also see the return from bartending retirement of Mr. Lenny Opai of Bayswater Brasserie fame. Lenny will do ‘an hour of power’ to pump out drinks to the thirsty crowd with DJ Jules and Andy Giltre on the decks.

The evening will kick off at 8.00pm at Tatler: 169 Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross. There’s free pizza from 8.30 - 9.30pm, but RSVPs are essential. Search for Bloody Mondays @ Tatler on Facebook to get your name on the door or click here.

An aspirational balance of rich flavours

By Simon McGoram

Photography by Rob Palmer

It was a rather sweaty late spring afternoon at Bartender HQ when it was decided we’d whip up this beverage for the December issue. To be honest this kiwi wasn’t feeling anything like a Millionaire still being unused to Sydney’s oft time tropical climate. But let’s face it; a rum-based-ice-cold cocktail wasn’t going to do any damage to my mood and, indeed, if you whip this recipe up yourself  you’ll find it to be an affable mood enhancer.

Sloe gin and apricot brandy are ingredients that have been touched on in the pages of Bartender magazine a couple of times last year but let’s hammer the message home again; they’re made for cracking cocktails and Millionaire Cocktail we’re sure you’ll count as one of these.

The inspiration for running with this cocktail has once again come from Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails (Deluxe Edition). Haigh cites the recipe as harking from The How and When of 1937 and labels it as a Millionaire #4 although the recipe is identical to one that appears in The Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930 with the handle “Millionaire Cocktail #1″. Numbers like these, as Haigh points out, were once a time-honoured way to catalogue drinks variations and entirely different drinks, which happen to have the same name. In this case both the names and the drink are identical. Go figure.

“Containing five ingredients this drink receipt is inordinately complicated for The Savoy.”

Of course, if you pop on the net you’ll find numerous variations which include rye whiskey, Grand Marnier, absinthe, egg white, gin and all other manner of ingredients. The Savoy has two and Sydney’s Bayswater Brasserie has a #5 version too. The Brasserie’s cocktail menu jests that: “The first four? Not so great. This one’s lovely.” But then their only improvement to the #4 is a dash of bitters - so the first four can’t be all that bad.

Containing five ingredients this drink receipt is inordinately complicated for The Savoy. Like many recipes found within its pages though, The Millionaire #1 (or #4 if you prefer) is comprised of equal parts of its liquor constituents. Ted Haigh argues that this will result in an overly sweet mix, but if you use a dash of real grenadine (made from fresh pomegranate juice and sugar) and ensure that you add an equal part of lime juice you’ll find that the beverage is surprisingly balanced.

Still too sweet? Try Bayswater Brasserie’s recommendation and throw in a dash of bitters, sit back, sip it and feel like a Million bucks.

Millionaire Cocktail #1

30ml Sloe Gin (Plymouth’s one is a doosey)

30ml Apricot Brandy

30ml Jamaican Rum (go for something dark, cheap and cheerful here like Coruba, Captain Morgan’s or Myers)

30ml Freshly squeezed lime juice

1 dash of real pomegranate grenadine

Add all ingredients to a shaker. Fill with ice and shake as if seven demons were goading to it.

Photography by Anthea Horton

490 Crown Street, Surry Hills, Sydney

02 9357 6100

www.toko.com.au

Tokonoma Sochu Bar and Lounge is the much-anticipated third venture from the team behind the neighbouring Toko restaurant. The popularity of Toko and the ensuing demand for space has been huge, increasing exponentially over the last couple of years. Tokonoma’s bar manager, Paul Birtwistle explains: “Through Tokonoma Shochu Bar and Lounge we have been able to expand Toko as a restaurant, while at the same time creating an entirely new destination for lovers of all things Japanese.”

While sake normally steals the limelight, shochu, Japan’s other indigenous beverage, is distilled from a number of raw materials including barley, buckwheat, sweet potato and sugar making it a perfect cocktail ingredient and cocktails just happen to a Tokonoma speciality. Tokonoma’s extensive cocktail menu offers a selection of infused shochu tonics, the finest Japanese sake and a wide variety of Japanese whiskies and liqueurs. Skilfully devised by Paul and his team at Toko over the last three years, Tokonoma’s cocktail menu makes use of homemade syrups, sodas, and tinctures; vanilla infused egg whites and freshly squeezed juices. The back bar is not not to be over either with luxury drops like Havana Club Maximo Extra Añejo Cuban rum weighing in at trifling $180 per serve.

To compliment drinks a pared down menu of delicious bite-sized Japanese dishes from Toko’s menu is on offer, which you can enjoy in the smooth and fluid look and feel of Tokonoma’s space designed by architect Matt Darwon, who first worked his magic on Toko.  Artist, Reni Kung, who created the stunning sun-like light sculpture comprising 60,000 matchsticks next-door, has once again used everyday raw materials to create a light sculpture for Tokonoma. Made entirely of lentils, perspex, resin and metal objects, the sculpture is an impressive 11 metres long and is entitled ‘Water’. Opening hours are Wednesday - Sunday, 5:30pm - midnight.

Jim Meehan, co-owner of New York’s worst kept secret - the speak-easy style cocktail bar Please Don’t Tell - lays it on the table at Sydney BarShow 09

Interview by Simon McGoram

What are your first impressions of the Australian bar scene (albeit over the hectic schedule of Sydney BarShow Week)?

“Well I mean for me, I’ve been to London Bar Show, I just did Paris Bar Show, I’ve done Tales and New York Bar Show and as a show this reminds me a lot of London and as a scene - I just think it’s incredible… there’s a bunch of really talented Australian bartenders in New York so I obviously knew that there was a culture here.

But if I look back on this experience there was a drink that I had a Hugos Bar Pizza - it was a Beefeater 24 Gimlet with house-made lime cordial and an Amer Bière and lavender tincture - it was just beautiful. I’ve been very impressed with the bar scene and the level of what’s going on over here. It’s been great.”

So can you tell us the story behind Please Don’t Tell?

“I think if anything that it’s been thrilling to see the interest that we’ve gotten, but I firmly believe that the bar will better tomorrow and next week than it is now…”

“Well PDT I opened as a consultant. At the time I was working at Pegu and Gramercy Tavern. You got numerous consulting opportunities working at Pegu most of which I turned down, but this was a little bit too good to be true. It was a bar located just a 10 minute walk from my house, it was a space that I walked into and fell in love as soon as I saw it…

At the time, I mean the cocktail scene in New York has just grown really exponentially throughout the course of the last few years. When there was just Milk & Honey, no-one left, no-one went out to train. When Flatiron opened same thing - no-one left because there were only two cocktail bars. Once Pegu opened Audrey was the first person to sort of hire and train staff that then went out to train other bartenders. And what we’ve seen since the opening staff left Pegu is the scene - instead of growing in addition - growing exponentially.

When PDT opened it was the beginning of the sort of tipping point in the city. That being said when we opened there still wasn’t a ton of cocktail bartenders around to hire.

I think with PDT we’ve grown. We opened up with butcher’s aprons, T-shirts and a 12 drink menu and just evolved and evolved and that’s had to do with the people I’ve been working with and just a lot of things. It’s and organic process.

I think if anything that it’s been thrilling to see the interest that we’ve gotten, but I firmly believe that the bar will better tomorrow and next week than it is now…

So I’m enjoying staying involved not moving on to the next process - not opening two more bars and really trying to make this bar as good as it can be.”

Well that might answer this question which is: What’s next? Are there plans for other PDT styled bars?

“I think that Crif Dogs and PDT are such a great concept. I don’t think we really understood what we were doing when we opened. I mean it was as simple as there was a space available next door and the hotdog stand had a liquor license. Let’s open a bar… Serving deep fried hotdogs on a plastic plate next to sophisticated 13 dollar cocktails - that sort of balance between something that’s simple and fun and something that is a little more serious, but understated - has been a great concept for us. But as far as moving forward goes it’s a lot easier to open another hotdog stand than to open another PDT.

“Serving deep fried hotdogs on a plastic plate next to sophisticated 13 dollar cocktails… has been a great concept for us.”

I take my hat of to Sasha and Jonathan Downey and all the people that have found a way to open up numerous cocktails bars, but sadly enough one cocktail bar equals one giant headache and two cocktail bars equals twice as giant a headache as the first one.

It is truly one of those things where I have to go to the bar everyday. There’s always a trip to some specialty store, the green market or my distributor is out of something so I have to go bring a bottle from home or go to the store. So I’m not rushing to open my next place.”

PDT is often referred to as a ’speakeasy style bar’. What exactly does this mean?

“That’s a great question. When we first opened - basically in the East Village of New York the community board has stopped approving liquor licenses - there’s a freeze on liquor licenses. The hotdog stand had a liquor license. The owner built a bar next to it and found a creative legal way to extend his liquor license from the hotdog stand into the bar. That being said there is a separate door to PDT, but if we’d used the separate door we wouldn’t have been able to use that liquor license. So the phone booth entrance is really a sort of extension of Brian’s twisted sense of humour. The way the bar came about wasn’t us consciously thinking hey let’s open a speakeasy - it came about because we wanted to utilise this space as a bar.

For the first few months people kept saying you guys are a speakeasy and I’m thinking to myself no, we’re not a speakeasy. A speakeasy is an illegal bar that serves crappy bathtub-gin based cocktails and that’s not what we are. But I came to a point where I realised that identity is equal parts what you think you are and what other people think of you. So OK we are a speakeasy, but we’re a modern speakeasy. So a modern speakeasy could be characterised as a place that’s quiet, a lot of the ’speakeasies’ in New York take reservations, there’s certainly a throw back to classic cocktails, there’s a style to the place, and there’s a soundtrack to the place. What we’ve stumbled upon was a tipping point, at least from a concept standpoint in… really in the world.”

Now you picked up a couple of gongs at this year’s Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans for Best American Bartender and World’s Best Cocktail Bar for PDT. How did that feel?

“To be honest? I now get more shit from my friends than ever before. So now I walk into a bar and they go “Oh! It’s the greatest bartender in the world!” and I’m like I was the bartender of the year it doesn’t even mean that I was the best at anything. Based on who I am… it’s crazy!

You know when someone says that you are running the best cocktail bar in the world or that you are, among the other bartenders that were nominated, the bartender of the year in America that 45 minutes on stage at Tales of the Cocktail, besides from my wedding and a few other moments… It’s incredibly gratifying to have worked hard and be recognised for what you do.

That being said, it comes with a price and the price is to go back and… I think one of the worst things you can ever do is read your own press and believe what other people are saying about you. So it’s flattering when someone says it, but you can’t believe it and if anything you need to go home and try to live up to it. So I don’t spend too much time trying to be the best bartender in America or run the best cocktail bar in the world.

But that being said… it was nice.”

What is it exactly that you look for in a bar when you’re out on the town?

“I think that if I went into every bar and ordered a Martinez then I would be an asshole. So I think that the first thing that I do when I walk into a bar is try to pick up on what the concept is and what these guys are going for.

I think that service is incredibly important; people being friendly, people being attentive. I can tolerate bad cocktails all night long if the service is good.

I look to let people sort of show me as a customer what they’re doing as opposed to trying to impose what I want from that bar.”