Inside look: Two of Sydney’s best bartenders open their first bar
How Bar Demo has put together its wine selection, and the smart cocktails they're bringing to Enmore Road in Newtown.
Newtown’s Enmore road is thriving. The strip has become a buzzy haven for small bar operators since the pandemic, with a number of bars opening in the last five years — bars like Bar Planet, Fortunate Son, Palomino Lounge, and The Magpie have joined Jacoby’s Tiki Bar on the strip, which opened back in 2017.
And in April, bartenders Oliver Churcher and Claudia ‘Beryl’ Morgan joined them, opening a bar of their own for the first time. Called Bar Demo, it’s a neighbourhood wine and cocktail bar offering some very smart drinks.
The duo previously worked together at Double Deuce Lounge in the Sydney CBD; Churcher was the bar’s opening general manager and set the template for drinks at the award-winning bar, with Morgan the bar’s head bartender, before she succeeded him as GM in 2023.
Victoria Hampshire, who has designed Conte Bar in Surry Hills, designed the bar for them, and there’s a quality sound system and acoustics in place to play the bar’s collection of vinyl — just don’t call them a listening bar, because they ain’t.
Bar Demo operates primarily as a wine bar, but given the duo’s talents with the mixing tins, they’re serving a good whack of cocktails, too.
“[The Martini] is probably our signature drink, because Churcher and I both love Martinis, and it’s a great pre-dinner, post-dinner option,” Morgan says.
It’s a good Martini, too — bracingly cold, served from the freezer, and with a little more vermouth than a classic dry spec.
“We wanted it to be as cold as possible and made really well, with really quality ingredients. So we’ve got Tanqueray gin and and Dolin dry vermouth. And we do [a ratio of] two to one, because that’s how we prefer it. We like a little bit more vermouth rather than a dry style.”
But should a guest like their Martini personally customised, they’ll do that too — and, the same way they did it at Double Deuce Lounge, they’ll stir the drink with a thermometer to ensure each drink goes out at the correct temperature.
“This [batched Martini] is at negative 13 degrees, which is colder than what we can possibly make it to order,” says Morgan. “If we’re using the thermometer it’s negative 3.5 Celsius.”
And loyal Double Deuce Lounge guests might recognise another link to their alma mater, with the reworking of the Full Bush appearing on the Bar Demo list.
“This is Olly’s second take on a Full Bush,” says Morgan. “He made the signature Full Bush at Double Deuce Lounge, which is with Maker’s Mark, yuzu juice, grapefruit.
“This is like a take on a Gold Rush. We use lemon — no grapefruit — and we use a gochujang honey. It's a little bit spicy, but not much — we’ve got a mild version. And we go a little bit heavier with the bush.” The bush in question? It’s made from chili threads.
“That sweetness and warmth of the bourbon works really well with that earthy, warm spiciness,” says Morgan.
They’ve also put thought into their mini drink selection. Take the Dominicana for example, a drink they’ve picked up from old New York bar, Milk & Honey.
“It’s dark rum, coffee liqueur stirred down and then cream clotted on top — a White Russian basically,” Churcher says. “We’ve added cold brew, and made it a more boozy. And it’s kept in the freezer really cold.”
Expect the cocktails to change seasonally, but the menu will change more rapidly, as wines by the glass — kept in good nick through the use of a Coravin — come on and off the list.
They’re pouring a dozen wines by the glass, with around 70 bottles on the longer by the bottle list.
The wines come from a mix of countries, Churcher says, with each by the glass option filling a specific need on the menu.
“By the glass we break it down into benchmark styles or types of wine,” he says. “So for example, you have two sparkling wines, one that’s cheaper, closer to prosecco or a pet nat, a bit simpler. And then we always have one premium. So in this case, we want to do actual champagne.
“For the white wine, we’ll have something light, dry, crisp, a bit more aromatic and then something a bit more oxidative and textural. Then we’ll have, you know, something a bit richer for the chardonnay drinker, and then something premium you wouldn’t normally be able to get.”
They’ve got one rose and one orange wine, and then they take a similar approach to the reds.
“A chilled red, one light pinot juicy thing,” Churcher says. “One with a little bit more savoury tannic structure. And then something as a rich red.”
Each wine listing offers a unique description, in a way that’s a little more accessible and which very much reflects the duo’s character. For example, the Italian red, Beulah Violetta ‘Stesso Stesso’, has the description: ‘Almost as a good as a Reschs.’
“We wanted to make it approachable, and to make people focus the least amount possible on grapes,” Churcher says. “We're dealing with wines that aren't industrially produced to a style.
“It’s about a time and a place and a situation, you get a better idea of what the wine's like than just talking about flavours. Some [descriptions] are dumb in-jokes as well. It’s an excuse for us to segue into talking about it.”
And while the wines lean natural, they’re wines that even more conventional wine drinkers can admire.
“We don’t tolerate bullshit,” Churcher says. “We don’t tolerate faulty stuff. I think the whole industry has really gone in that direction.
“A lot of these producers now, they’re more established. They don’t have to rush it to market as much to get cashflow coming in.”
When we stop in, they’ve been open a month, and despite a lot of work to get the doors open — the process took around a year and a half, they’re starting to hit their stride now that the real work begins.
“At least it's more familiar to us,” Morgan says. “We’re bartending and working in hospitality, you get an instant dopamine hit when someone says it’s the best or this wine’s delicious or whatever. Whereas we weren’t getting that before. We’ve both worked in bars for a long time now. So even though we're doing probably more hours than ever, we’re in a more comfortable kind of situation.
“And we can do what we want.”
Adelaide, it’s your turn to get behind Speed Rack Australia. This Sunday 29 June, get down to Maybe Mae from 7pm to cheer on the competitors in the SA round of Speed Rack, the high-speed, high-energy female bartending competition that raises money for breast cancer research, all while having one hell of a good time.
I’ve been to both the Sydney and Melbourne events so far, and loved it — you can get your $15 ticket (the money goes to charity!) and secure your spot here. And Perth, you’re up next, on Sunday 6 July.