Cocktail List of the Year
We're rating the nation's best drinks lists, and we'll be checking them twice.
It's our feeling that the cocktail list deserves its day in the sun. There's no shortage of acclaim going around for the label-lickers and bottle-strokers of the wine community, but in the league of stiffer drinks, recognition of a beautifully produced document is harder to come by. It's a pity, too, when you consider just how flash cocktail lists have become in the past 10 or so years. You've got your novella-sized volumes - such as those seen at Melbourne trailblazer Der Raum or Brisbane black sheep Sling - where you could, if you chose, read them like books, and then there are the single-page stunners along the lines of the lists brandished at Sydney's Flinders hotel and Shady Pines Saloon (the latter being a marvel of brevity, listing only seven cocktails). And then there's a rainbow of fruit flavours in between.
We want to point the nation's drinkers to the best lists in the land, so if you know of a good one, or, indeed, if you write a killer list for your own bar, we want to hear from you. Send a hard copy of your list to Cocktail List of the Year, Gourmet Traveller, GPO Box 4088, Sydney, NSW 2001 by 12 October. Our expert booze-hounds will sort through them and name the crème de la crème in the December issue. If you'd like to suggest a list, drop us an email under a "Cocktail List Awards" subject line to gourmettravellermag@acpmagazines.com.au.
PHOTOGRAPH JULIE CRESPEL
This article was published in September 2010.