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.

Charlie Hunter is a Brisbane-based bartender — originally from Perth — who has been busy making a name for herself over the course of the last few years, and recently took the reigns to open Dark Blue, a new small wine and cocktail bar in Fortitude Valley. Here, Charle talks about how creative problem solving in hospitality, and why what she doesn’t know fascinates her the most.

BOOTHBY: We’re going to be talking about creativity, but first up, can you tell us what the name of your drink and the idea behind it?

CHARLIE HUNTER: Mine is super simple. Mine’s called the Mofo Margarita. It just felt right. It was low hanging fruit. I find it really difficult to pick one thing. So I went for a Tommy’s Margarita kind of style because I feel like that’s the hospo handshake. Everyone loves the Tommy’s. And then I wanted it to be spicy, because I don’t know if you’ve been down there in Hobart during winter, everything’s served warm. You can get a hot cider, a hot toddy, hot anything really. So I really wanted it to have a spice element to it.

And then red was important because obviously the motif of Dark Mofo is that everything’s red. So it was a little hospitality-inspired spicy warm red Margarita.

Can you walk us through the ingredients?

It’s super easy. So I’ve got 50ml of Espolon Blanco. I’ve got 10ml of Montalobos Espadin, because I love a Margarita with a little mezcal in there. And then I’ve got 20ml of a lacto-fermented puree — strawberry and bird’s eye chili. And then 20ml agave syrup, 20ml lime juice.

Do you think of yourself as a creative kind of person?

I love just thinking about things, thinking about how it all comes back to the guest experience, and what they’re going to find fresh, invigorating and enjoyable. In an industry where everything’s constantly changing and evolving, it’s really hard to give something fresh if you’re not thinking creatively.

Where do you tend to get your creative ideas from?

I love a nostalgic thing. Particularly working with things like fairy bread, chocolate milk, like a banana paddle pop, I love things that tie back to childhood foods.

Foods that make you feel good.

Yeah. They can kind of evoke a memory. I think that’s really fun to work with. I love not knowing something. This is a big one: I hate lychees. I can’t stand them. So working creatively to make a lychee drink taste good for me is kind of fun. I don’t know what it is about them. They’re so popular in Queensland, so I’ve got to get over it.

But if I don’t know something, I like working creatively to figure out how to get that into a drink and how for that to taste good. There’s the aspect of seeing things that inspire you, art and things like that. Dark Mofo was a big one, obviously with the red light motifs — that’s very inspiring. How am going to put that into a drink that’s a translatable experience?

On that lychee thing — that’s like problem solving?

Yes, creative problem solving is huge in hospo.

Do you have any advice for people, maybe bartenders who have just started to make drinks for the first time, or for people more broadly, on how they can stoke their own creative process?

If you’re just starting out, definitely talk to the people around you; there will always be other bartenders in your sphere who have more experience with your customer base. Because when you’re just starting out and just doing drinks for lists, I feel you often make drinks that you want — and not necessarily drinks that the guests will want. Or if you do make a drink that the guests want, maybe it’s not financially viable for the bar to make 50 of them a week.

Look at the spirit that you’re using. Look at the flavour notes, find things that complement it. One of the easiest ways to start making drinks is to go through complementary flavour profiles. I recommend downloading on The Flavor Thesaurus. Obviously a lot of people have that as a resource that they can just like flick through the pages. I find it so helpful on Apple iBooks because then you can just search in what you’re looking for and it pops right up. That’s a major resource that I used so much when I was first starting out.

What about now? Where do you get your ideas for drinks now?

I love a theme. We are focusing on Mediterranean and South American influences on wine at Dark Blue. We’re looking at wines from Spain, from Chile, from Portugal, and from Argentina mainly. And I don’t want people to come in and then get a cocktail with something like yuzu in it, which just doesn’t make sense in the spirit of the theme we’re working with.

What did that whole Dark Mofo experience make you feel?

I loved it. Probably the big takeaway for me, and from competitions, is the networking that you get to do during them is so worth it. I hate public speaking. The competition side of things involves standing up and presenting your drink. It’s so nerve wracking and it shouldn’t be because I talk to people constantly. But spending those couple of days in a house with people, like some friends like Georgia who I already knew and then there were some other people there that I’d never met before and that was absolutely amazing.

Charlie Hunter’s Mofo Margarita

• 50ml Espolon Blanco
• 10ml Montelobos Espadin Mezcal 
• 15ml lacto fermented strawberry and birds eye chilli puree 
• 15ml lime juice 
• 15ml agave syrup

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a funky rocks glass on block ice, garnish with a lime wedge dipped in chilli salt.