Good To Go

Don’t own a cocktail shaker? Fear not – Australia’s best small bars and boutique distillers are doing the dirty work for you, writes MAX ALLEN.

- Max Allen

Leading Melbourne bar The Everleigh is selling a collection of “antique” cocktails made using rare old spirits that were bottled decades ago. There’s a Martini made with Gordon’s gin from the 1950s; a Negroni featuring Plymouth gin and Campari bottled in the ’70s; a Bobby Burns made with 1980 Aberlour Speyside single malt. But you don’t need to travel to the bar in Fitzroy’s Gertrude Street to enjoy these limited-edition cocktails: you can hop onto The Everleigh’s website and buy them by the single-serve bottle, pre-mixed by the experts and ready to drink.

Welcome to the rapidly expanding world of high-quality pre-batched cocktails. Since the mid-2010s, when The Everleigh started selling its “Famous Four” cocktails – Martini, Negroni, Manhattan and Old Fashioned – in 85ml bottles, other Australian brands have followed suit, showcasing the best that this country’s booming mob of artisan distilleries have to offer.

Not long after the first Everleigh cocktails hit the market, Sydney-based craft-spirits distributor Nip of Courage started selling liter-bottles of pre-mixed Martini, Negroni and Espresso Martini – perfect for parties – made using seriously good spirits such as the fragrant gin from Stone Pine in NSW and Belgrove white rye from Tasmania. And the Melbourne Martini company launched a range of ready-to-drink cocktails, including a Margarita and an Espresso Martini, “bottled” in jam jars.