Behind the bar at J&M whisky and cocktail bar, a drink is elegantly thrown and poured into a stemmed glass, another is being smoked, a coffee ice sphere is about to impart flavour into a drink and clear ice is hand-chipped ready to be placed into a chilled coupette. You would be correct in thinking you’re drinking at one of Sydney’s esteemed cocktail bars, except that you’re also imbibing in a place of history.
Rosetta Sour – Photo © Cocktails & Bars
Before it was a whisky and cocktail bar, during the sixties and seventies, J&M was home to the late Mr John and Merivale Hemmes’ iconic fashion outlet, House of Merivale. And in a city that prefers to demolish the old and rebuild new, J&M is more than a nod to history and its fashion roots. Take the Rosetta Sour – a whisky sour meets breakfast martini – a cocktail named after Merivale’s best employee in the 70s.
Among splendid interiors with an old world feel, chesterfield sofas, copper accents and a long glass bar, bespoke haberdashery cabinets now house rare spirits, a few of the 300 strong whiskies from around the globe.
Cocktails are popular among guests and the inspiration for the J&M spring cocktail list was simple. “The idea was to put modern twists on classic cocktails to make the drinks approachable for our guests,” Russell Downie, Venue Manager explains.
“The new J&M spring drinks list is designed with approachable ingredients used in different ways to help showcase different styles of spirits/liquors our guest might not tend to order on a usual night out,” he adds.
In a whisky-focussed venue, they have tried adding a little bit of something for everyone into the menu. “My focus behind some of the drinks is supposed to be a gateway into introducing people to drinking whisky if they have not done so before. By using ingredients that typically appeals to a non-whisky drinker, I have tried to incorporate them into whisky led drinks to showcase the diverseness of the whisky category.”
This article is over multiple pages:
Click through the following pages to view a selection of the cocktails on the new J&M spring cocktail list.
