we all know that aussie whiskey is having a moment and if you didn't then you should check
out our series on it here an australian gin is booming with almost 300 distilleries at last count
but what about everything else? would it be possible to stock a bar entirely with
australian products and make as many cocktails as you want? in my opinion absolutely!
i was lucky enough to be asked to judge the australian distilled spirits awards this year
and the panel that i got put on was to me anyway definitely the most fun we tasted everything from
vermouth and aperitifs to bitters to absinthes to agave spirits that's right mexico we're coming for
you and all australian made when you think about the environmental cost of international shipping
plus an increased public preference for supporting local it's really a no-brainer to set a few native
heroes on your back bar australia has such a distinctive landscape and produce that i do
just love to taste that reflected in my glass as well in this video i am going to concentrate more
on interesting ingredients for your cocktails but definitely let me know in the comments if you want
more chat on alternative australian spirits like agave and cane speaking of local scene
thank you very much to a plus who are a partner for this video it's part of a series that we've
produced in partnership with them these kind of do some deep dives into some important issues
facing the industry and just allow me to nerd out a little bit now let's take a
look at some of my favorite most versatile products and stay tuned because i'll also
be knocking up some all aussie delights to show how well they substitute into classic cocktails
or how they can work as the catalyst for some innovative drinks creation to set your venue apart
these are a few products and producers have earned themselves a pretty constant spot on
my bar because they're basically a direct replacement for classic cocktail ingredients
but homegrown and often even more delicious than the major international players what's not to
love? i will pop contact details for them all down below if anyone feels inspired to make a change in
their bars but this is in no way sponsored by any of these guys i do just think they're great
so first off marionette anyone who is a regular viewer here will know how much of a fan i am of
these melbourne made liqueurs they're made by literally the nicest folks in hospitality
who all have serious bartending pedigree and so really know what we need in a liqueur and
then they work directly with australian farmers to use seasonal fruit so often stuff that's too
ugly for supermarkets they started out with only a cassis but then they quickly added a
curacao and now they have a pretty full range including an apricot brandy and even an amaretto
they are generally less sweet than large commercial brands but that allows the fruit
flavours to be really bright and vibrant and then they work really well in most classics i honestly
get a bit disappointed nowadays if i have a margarita that isn't made with their curacao
and the depths of nuttiness that you can get in an amaretto sour with their amaretto is next level
78 degrees have become a bit of a one-stop shop for well-priced australian booze they
have gins whiskeys vodka even some dangerously tasty pre-mixed g&t cans but today i'm talking
about their vermouth and bitters sasha the distiller spent some time in europe and learned
how to make classic italian staples vermouth and amari he came home determined to recreate those
flavour profiles using the crazy abundance of unique native plants in australia boasts
their orange bitter sit somewhere between aperol and campari in terms of sweetness and
intensity with heaps of juicy orange notes so it works equally well in a negroni and a spritz
the vermouth are also made in that italian style so really big and bold my favorite is the rose
which has a toasty nutty note from wattle seed and then a really cool sort of savory herbal
edge from things like karkalla and native thyme and i love it just on ice but it also works in
a spritz or as a really interesting martini variation unsurprisingly it pairs quite well
with their sunset gin and a little grapefruit twist and who doesn't love a pink drink they
also have a massive focus on sustainability with a closed loop water system and an energy system
which actually feeds power back into the grid so brownie points for that too and on that no a-plus
do have a pretty cool article on sustainability on their website which mentions all of this as well
given that i work in a spanish-inspired venue i do have a small okay quite large obsession with
sherry but australia has its own proud history of making fortified wines which are now known as
apera well oz might be better known for stickies so really thick and sweet wines some wine makers
do make a spanish style of dry sherry and my favorite cocktail in this neighborhood is the
olive spritz from gerald's bar in carlton north and it uses the pennyweight fino style sherry
they also have an oloroso and an amontillado style too and so it can be substituted into
sherry cobblers or bamboos coronation cocktails whatever really i do find them a bit rounder and
richer than most spanish sherry which makes sense given the bold style of most australian
booze really um but it just adds extra depth and weight now it makes sense that we have our
own mixers to go with all of this tasty booze and strange love delivers their tonics echo a lot of
the indigenous botanicals found in aussie gin and they stand up to them really well but my mvp is
their salted grapefruit soda because it makes the best paloma ever but also just works as sort of
a grown-up soft drink sophisticated mixers using local produce and interesting flavor combinations
again what's not to love so there we have some easy and delicious australian substitutions for
your classic cocktails but it is about time i made some drinks just because i'm greedy and
i want to show you even more exciting products i'm going to use a few different ones to what
i've just discussed but you obviously usually only really need one vermouth one bitter and so
on in your repertoire unless you have a real focus on a particular category in your bar
and that leads us to the australian negroni make the negroni is arguably the most classic
of classics a simple three ingredient drink which showcases the interplay of sweet bitter and dry
which underpins every well-balanced cocktail it's also the perfect setting to let an australian
ingredient showdown play out maiden eye was the first australian vermouth i ever tried and it's
still one of my favorites plus the producer is a very suave frenchman this sweet vermouth is made
specifically with the negroni in mind so it's got a really spicy cab sav wine base and then
botanicals like grapefruit zest sea parsley and strawberry gum which just gives it heaps of lift
the saint felix bitter aperitivo is a red bitter from just outside of melbourne they use heaps and
heaps of citrus it's really juicy and then it also uses a lemon myrtle for a lovely fragrance and
some rosella there as well both of these are quite intense and powerful so i actually like to keep
the gin quite clean and bright the aforementioned 78 degrees distillery does have a classic gin
which keeps it pretty straight forward in terms of botanicals and provides a perfect juniper
and citrus backbone here i do knock both modifiers back a little bit from the traditional equal parts
ratio because they are such strong flavors but you can obviously start there and then just bump them
up to your taste we're going to go with 20 mls of maidenii sweet vermouth into your mixing glass
then 20 mls of the saint felix bitter citrus aperitivo
if i can get it open i always do this to myself there we go
do it off camera next time
and then 40 mls of the adelaide hills classic gin
um as i said the maiden eye has that lovely grapefruit zest in there so i do like to
kind of play on that rather than use the traditional orange just to tie in so we're
going to do a grapefruit zest i am just going to keep that really nice and chunky because as
i said we're definitely not dealing with any shrinking violets flavor-wise here so it's a
pretty kind of bold and rustic drink then we're just gonna stir the negroni on some
ice grab your glass out from the fridge or the freezer and then just use a little julep strainer
to hold the ice back fill up with some fresh ice or a big ice block as ideal if you have it as well
then just give your grapefruit a little fold over the top to get all those lovely oils
then we can roll that up and slot it in
and there we have an australian negroni so we'll see how this goes
it's really yummy it's a bit more savory than um your sort of classic negroni i feel
like uh both the maidenii and the saint felix have a few more kind of like woody botanicals
in there so it's got like a really pretty good sort of solid um woody spice on the finish as well
super juicy and you just get all of that um really nice lifted notes from your
sort of lemon myrtle and things like that it's actually just generally got a bit more going on
than a classic negroni uh in terms of supporting flavors but still very much has that sort of
triangle of you know your sweet dry and bisser which is exactly what you want
for this drink so all in all a very successful substitution i would say
so if that's a classic negroni seen through an australian lens what about taking it out of the
box a bit as i said before that flavor triangle is the base of many an old school cocktail and
modern take and i often lean on it when doing drinks development like with this next drink
melbourne cocktail week was one of the few events that we actually managed to have go ahead this
year despite lockdowns and at bomba we partnered with mr black coffee liqueur to host an event
showcasing coffee cocktails beyond the espresso martini not that that's not still my favorite
cafe correto is one of those it shouldn't work but it does combinations of espresso and amaro
quite often campari and so i took inspiration from that to create a bittersweet digestif
mr black is a coffee liqueur which really encapsulates how much aussies love coffee
it's way less sweet than most coffee liqueurs so it doesn't really dominate in a drink like
this in terms of texture and it provides plenty of that espresso style bitterness now the 78 degrees
bitter orange as i said before it sits a little less astringently bitter than campari and so it's
juicy and again just works nicely in harmony the regal rogue lively white is in the style of a
bianco vermouth so off dry in terms of sweetness level and this drink does need a little bit of
sweetness and it has really bright citrus notes like finger lime and desert lime as well as softer
florals like elderflower and chamomile i actually infused it overnight with mandarin both the pith
and the segments to tie it into the orange coffee notes going on in the other ingredients
and it's also where this drink gets its name because you have a little mandarin segment and
dehydrate it to make a beautiful mandarin garnish if you don't have a dehydrator then it absolutely
works just fresh as well now we're going to go in with 20 ml of the 78 degrees bitter orange
then we go full 30 mls of our mandarin infused regal rogue
and then a full 30 mls again of the mr black coffee liqueur
pops it in and give that all a stir
none of this is particularly high abv there's not like a spirit in there per se so you actually
don't have to stress too much about diluting it that much it's really just to chill it down
then just grab your uh rocks glass out of preferably the freezer or the fridge if you can
just use your julep strainer to hold the ice bag and pour into your glass then we're just going to
add some fresh ice or a big block is kind of ideal i did have a slight freezer malfunction today but
this will absolutely do then last but not least our little mandarin butterfly can just balance on
the side here and there we have a butterfly effect give this one a little taste as well
it's really delicious like super super juicy um and obviously not that high in abv so quite
gentle compared to kind of your other negroni style drinks um and then that coffee just comes
through with like a big whack of kind of bitter and drying coffee at the end it definitely if
you're as much of a caffeine fiend as me it leaves you wanting to go back for more
look i don't like to toot my own trumpet but i was pretty happy with this one and it's been on
the menu for a while and has had a really good reception so it is really fun to see how kind
of being inspired by and playing around with these australian products can make something
pretty damn delicious one disclaimer i'd like to add is that as much as i'm saying that they
substitute well into classic cocktails they do change them so i know many people who will get
a little bit mad if they order a negroni and it comes with something other than campari because
that's the exact taste that they're looking for each australian product has its own distinct
flavor profile and that's what's so cool but i would consider calling it out on your menu
with something like australian negroni rather than just handing your guests something made with all
australian ingredients when they've asked for a regular negroni then another nice thing about
all of these guys being local is that they usually have feet on the ground in every australian city
and they're keen to get their products represented well so if you were kind of considering any
options here then i just reach out to your local reps and have a little try before you buy
thank you very much to a plus who are a partner for this video please head over to their
website they've got heaps more industry focused articles and videos and industry support as well