Cocktails are a given at pretty much all bars and nightclubs in Australia, so it is no small feat for Gold Coast bar and restaurant Black Coffee Lyrics to stand out amongst all that competition to win the Monkey Shoulder Whiskey competition for its Brass Monkey Flip cocktail. Besides being the first Queensland bar to ever win this award, bar manager Adam Bastow is reaping the rewards by not only all the praise the bar is getting for its award winning cocktail, but will soon be flown over to Scotland to visit some of its many whiskey distilleries. Adam found time to have a chat with me about winning this awesome award.
How long have you been working in the bar scene for? What got you into it?
My first ever job at 13 was tapping barrels and filling fridges for 10 pounds a weekend (bargain on his part), and I’ve been in and out of bars ever since. When I arrived in Australia, it’s pretty much the only work you can get as a traveller unless you want to bully oldies into buying mobile phones, which isn’t my gig. So I got another bar job and realised how much id missed it. The smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd, you know…
How was it to win the Monkey Shoulder Whiskey competition out of all the bars nominated across Australia?
Oh man, it’s so cool! I was stoked with the way the drink turned out, I got a good response, and to see people Instagramming my work as soon as it hit the table bought a cheesy grin to my face. Solid hipster over here. So to then go and actually win over all was really, really nice, man. I went bananas. HA!
Black Coffee Lyrics is the first Queensland bar to win this award. Do you feel that perhaps cocktails aren’t really a focus in Gold Coast bars compared to bars in Sydney and Melbourne?
I think it’s unfair to compare the Gold Coast to Sydney and Melbourne purely because of how young the Gold Coast is as a city. People only know what they’ve been exposed to and the cocktail culture here has been very lacking in the last few years. But with a little bit of education and persuasion, the Gold Coast has definitely moved forward. We aren’t monkeying around anymore (okay, no more monkey puns).
Since your bar’s victory, do you think that other Queensland bars will up the ante and try to have more of a focus on cocktails?
I really hope so. There are already a small handful of really innovative bartenders here building the foundations for a great culture, and everyone is willing to share ideas to help push our industry forward. When the new transport system is finished, it will offer easy access to the whole coastal strip. There’s commercial property all among that strip just begging to be injected with good booze and good food. So hopefully we see more cocktail bars pop up very soon.
How did you come up with the Brass Monkey Flip cocktail?
It all started with the egg. I wanted to create something that left the bar and never came back. Like a bird. So the egg happened. Then the drink followed. The egg started the flip idea and after a while the Brass Monkey Flip came into being. The drink itself reminded me of Christmas. My nan used to do brandy snaps every year, so I made monkey snaps. And without realising, answering a universal question, it was the egg.
When will you be going to Scotland to see the Monkey Shoulder distilleries over there? That must be very exciting for you.
I’m off to the UK in August, I am very excited actually, I’ve decided to fly out early and go visit my family in England for a short time. I’m gonna go surprise my nan, she’s gonna go ape shit! Then I’ll head off up north and see what goes down in kilt country. I’m excited to see the distilleries and hopefully taste some things that I would probably get no other way of tasting unless I’d won this competition. It’s all about education, right? It’s not really, though is it, I will be drunk. When in Rome?
Any plans to win anymore cocktail competitions in the future? Gearing up for next year’s Monkey Shoulder?
I just plan to continue doing weird stuff and working along side these cool companies. They have ways to get my cogs turning and I just enjoy getting carried away with it, like a drunk Victor Frankenstein. I’ve also recently grown a beard in order to conduct an experiment to see what different things taste like, hours after you attempted to consume them. There have been some charming results. I don’t know, I’ve entered a few this year. I am in love with what I do and I love sharing my ideas and philosophies and I get really, really excited about stuff! So by entering these competitions, it gives me the opportunity to reach more people and share it all with them, and if I work hard and people like my shit, I’m a happy boy.
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