In June, Espolon Tequila gathered 11 likeminded and creative bartenders together in Hobart to attend Dark Mofo, the winter festival of arts and culture known for being a little subversive and provocative. They discussed creativity, swapped ideas, and found inspiration in the depths of winter — and now they’re sharing what they found with bartenders in their cities.

Bertie Boekemann is no stranger to the pointy end of bartending and cocktail competitions, and after a successful run as bar manager at Now & Then in Sydney, has just made the move to Melbourne to explore what’s next on his hospitality horizon. Below, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, Bertie talks about how he brings his own creativity into his bartending and his everyday life, and explains why mistakes aren’t such a bad thing after all.

BOOTHBY: What’s the idea with this Afterlife Underground program?

The people at Espolon took 12 bartenders down to Hobart. We went down for five days, experienced all the creativity and all of the wonderful stuff of Dark Mofo, talked about that, talked about the industry, how that inspires us and where we sort of draw our inspiration, how we go through our creative process.

Where do you get your ideas from when you’re coming up with drinks?

I’m always like a tumble dryer of ideas. I throw things at the wall, or things bounce around in the back of my head in a very fuzzy kind of way and eventually something comes forward that’s a little more clear in terms of its concept.

Do you think you’re a creative guy?

I’ve been a musician all my life. I did arts at university. My mum’s a musician, so I come from a big creative artistic family. And no matter what I was going to end up doing, it was always going to have a big creative element to it.

I try to bring that to my bartending and my drink making and just everyday life.

Do you think the creative part, does that just apply just to coming up with drinks? Or does that go throughout your whole job as a bartender?

I think, the importance of creativity just in general is, it’s not just abouT making art. Creativity can be found in that questioning of norms, and trying to find new approaches, new ways of solving problems. Just thinking outside of the box, there’s no such thing as someone who isn’t creative. I always challenge that when someone’s says, oh, I don’t have a creative bone in my body. It’s just not true.

Tell us about your drink?

The drink’s called Solstice, to evoke the themes of winter solstice that Dark Mofo takes a lot of its inspiration from. It’s made with a base of blackberry fruit-jacked Espolon Blanco, redistilled Cynar, so we get that beautiful like bright floral artichoke distillate. We use that to fortify a white rice amazake and then that’s finished with a white chocolate and marshmallow root hot foam.

And where did the idea for this drink start?

It came from a moment while we were at Dark Mofo when we went out and experienced the winter feast, and our big night out on the town in Hobart experiencing Dark Mofo. Near the end of the evening there was this moment of hazily eating some s’mores with some dear friends of mine after experiencing all this great art, and having these emotional experiences. The end of the evening, eating those s’mores, really stuck out to me as something important — a moment of clarity after all the chaos of everything.

What was it about that particular moment that made it memorable?

The trip for me was already pretty tumultuous. I’d just left Sydney. I hadn’t yet moved into Melbourne. I went straight down to Hobart. So quit my job, moved states. And that was the first time since leaving Sydney where I felt grounded and happy and comfortable again.

What advice do you have for anyone sort of wanting to explore their own creativity?

Look, don’t be afraid to fail. Failure is such an ugly word these days, people are so afraid of it. I always like to think that when you’re winning and succeeding, you’re not learning. Talk to anyone who has had any amount of success and ask them about how difficult it was to get there. They will tell you hundreds of times that they fell over their own feet.

Especially when you’re making drinks or doing something like creating art, it feels so high stakes, but making a mistake... it’s not a big deal. Treat yourself like a kid when you’re being creative. It’s really important.

Bertie Boekemann’s Solstice

• blackberry-jacked Espolon Blanco
• redistilled Cynar
• amazake
• hot white chocolate and marshmallow root foam