Bartenders
I'm originally from Cornwall, but I grew up in Lincolnshire
I started off down in Brighton in a couple of cocktail bars, before moving to Australia and working at 1806 and the Understudy in Melbourne. I then spent some time working in a couple of bars in Rome before working in London. i WAS back in Lincoln for a while working at both the Strait and Narrow, and the Rogue Saint, and now I'm an Ambassador for The Duppy Share.
My favourite bars have to be 69 Colebrooke Row in London, and the Everleigh in Melbourne.
Whisky and a beer for the win.
Probably accepting “Young Bartender of the Year” in Australia’s annual bar awards… That was pretty cool.
I have done many things on a bar.
I’m not sure yet…
The best goes to my friend Peter Hollands of the Gresham in Australia with “Hi, I’m Pete” just because of the annoying success rate he seemed to achieve. The worst also goes to Peter Hollands of the Gresham in Australia with “want to come back to my house and stroke my rabbit” which, incidently enough also had quite an annoying success rate.
I collect rare bottles of beer and I have an unhealthy obsession with banana based cocktails, because you know, I like to stay on trend.
Can’t you just have a beer or a gin and tonic!! I like to make simple but staple classics, something stirred like a Negroni (which I developed a deep appreciation for whilst living in Rome) is a personal favourite to make. I like mine equal parts of Campari, Martini Gran Lusso and gin-something simple like East London Liquor Company. But if you do want a gin and tonic then I’d probably recommend Gin Mare as I've grown quite accustomed to it recently…
I never ever order Martinis… not because I don’t like them, but because I like to have them in such a specific way that I don’t ever want to be “that guy”… I used to drink them a lot in Melbourne with my friend Todd Findlay, and this was our recipe: 60ml Gin (we used Brokers), 10ml Noilly Pratt, 10ml Lagavulin 16yr, 5ml pickled onion brine. It's kind of a take on a smoky Martini/Gibson/Dirty Martini… it's delicious. Especially if your bar stocks blue cheese stuffed olives!!
I never had any idea of what I wanted to be when I was young-one of the reasons I never went to uni. Like many of us I started working in bars as soon as I was 18-and I haven’t stopped.