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.

Jesse Kourmouzis plied his trade behind on of Australia’s best bars, Above Board, for a number of years; now, he’s in charge of the drinks program when the sun goes down at Sleepy’s Cafe & Wine Bar in Carlton North. Here, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, Jesse talks about the way he pulls together drinks, what he looks for when he’s looking for inspiration, and why he enjoys messing with people’s minds just a little.

BOOTHBY: Tell us where you’re working?

JESSE KOURMOUZIS: I currently manage Sleepy’s Cafe & Wine Bar in Carlton North. We’re here talking about the Afterlife Underground experience with Espolon — we were lucky enough to get taken to Tasmania for Dark Mofo, and now we’re sitting in an abandoned butcher shop.

How very Dark Mofo. Tell us about the name of your drink and then tell us what the ingredients are?

The name of the drink is called the Darkside. Pretty much when we landed in Tasmania for Dark MoFo, we were told to embrace the darkness. One of my most popular drinks is called the Brightside. And I wanted to encapsulate both the light and the dark that we experience there.

Run us through the ingredients. How does it go in the glass?

I am highlighting Espolon Reposado as the base of the cocktail. You then have little bit of yuzu sake, lychee and a homemade pineapple tepache where I actually torched half the pineapple skins and blackened them to increase that char and that dark element. We are then topping it with a little coconut mousse and a little bit of dark black roasted sesame.

Nice, hence the Darkside. How do you think about creativity?

It ebbs and flows. Sometimes the name comes first and then you build backwards. This one specifically, I was inspired by day one and day three of the event. So day one we actually had a whole roasted pig cooked over the fire and I knew I wanted to incorporate the dark roasted just charred element. As the trip progressed, my favourite thing at the Winter Feast was a stall that just had skeletons and carcasses and a massive roaring fire behind it. So that’s where the creativity originally started for this and I was going to go a lot more boozy, just dark. But what I love on the trip is at the end of every night after every confronting scene or intimidating thing that we saw, there was always a core group of us sitting around the fire pit having the most genuine, just light conversations.

So the idea morphed — I wanted to visually capture the darkness, which is why the black sesame will coat the entire drink. But then without the dark, there is no light. And so as you drink through, you get the light elements captured around the darkness.

What is it about playing off those contrasts that often makes for a really cool creation?

Look, contrasts and colours are something that I love working with. Encapsulating the whole essence of an experience is the most critical part, and I love just playing with people’s minds. They see something, they already visually have an idea of what it’s going to taste like or what it’s going to be and then changing that in the flick of a heartbeat is just awesome.

You just talked about how ideas for you sort of ebb and flow. When you’re walking into a place like Dark Mofo, are you looking actively for ideas or do things sort of pop up? Can you describe what that was like walking around and knowing that you’re going to be coming up with something?

At first it was very much intimidating trying to dissect lots of little things. Just being like, okay, I like that. What did I like about it? Trying to draw on the nitty gritty. From my time at [Melbourne bar] Above Board, I was trying to figure out the tiny, weirdest flavour pairings, and the nichest aspect of things. Whereas I did just go into this experience with an open mind. I personally didn’t look at any of the schedules or run sheets for the actual event, not for this.

I just walked in with an open mind and I was lucky. It was very visually popping. There were lots of colours, lots of darkness, and the brightness of reds. And I was just walking through trying to get what I could from everything.

What would you say to the bartenders sort of wanting to come up with drinks ideas or, know, I guess maybe be more creative in their careers. What advice would you give to them?

Try tests. If you think that something’s not gonna work, put equal parts, like five mils of each in a glass, have a taste. Chances are you will be able to dissect one or two flavour pairings that you wouldn’t have originally thought of from that. But go out and see your friends, other bars, see what they’re doing. We’re lucky with today’s day and age that information is being shared a lot more freely. People are no longer like safeguarding all their recipes and secrets.

Just go out and try things and test things, even if you know it’s going to fail. I’d say after 10 attempts of it failing, put it on the backburner, forget about it for a year, come back to it. And then chances are you’ll have seven different iterations of that drink that taste so much better.

Jesse Kourmouzis’ Darkside recipe

• Espolon Reposado
• yuzu sake
• lychee liqueur
• torched pineapple skin tepache
• coconut foam