Welcome to Sidecar No Sugar, a weekly Boothby briefing about Brisbane bars and the people, work and creativity behind them. (You can sign up to get it in your inbox each week, right here.) This week, I speak to Steph Jacobs, Antico’s general manager, about their new cocktail menu.
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Somewhere between the first briefing and the last tasting, a cocktail menu perseveres or caves under its own ambition. For Antico’s general manager Steph Jacobs, the goal of this menu was clarity in all aspects – concept, execution and the day-to-day reality of running a high-volume cocktail bar.
The new menu has been in motion since September last year. “We try to have the concepts ready within a month or two so that we can make sure no two bartenders are using the same flavours or heading in the same direction,” Jacobs explains. “You don’t want too many similar drinks.”
The result is a tightly edited, multi-iterationed list of 13 cocktails, including two legacy drinks from previous menus. “That number is not too overwhelming for the team to relearn,” she says. “Also, with the size of our venue, we don’t have the space for lots of batches and syrups in our fridges.” The menus at their sister venues, Dr. Gimlette and Death and Taxes are much more extensive, sitting at the 20-drink mark.
The start of the creative process of a new menu is pragmatic: each staff member is assigned a classic cocktail, as well as base spirit, glassware and method, then tasked with creating something well-balanced (and tasty). From there, it becomes a collaborative edit. Drinks are tested as single serves before being adapted for batching, with the Cuatro Group’s warehouse team (the warehouse batches the venues’ cocktails and block ice) weighing in on balance and feasibility. “Sometimes they have to change a few flavours here and there, but they’ve got the knowledge to decide whether to cut anything that’s unnecessary or overpowering,” Jacobs says.
If the structure is disciplined, the design and stylistics of the menu is anything but. Every drink riffs on a classic cocktail while the naming is more arbitrary and vibe-driven. This menu’s names are song-themed. Inside the leather-bound menus are illustrations of birds, a reference to the venue’s sculptural interiors.
“We’ve got drinks like Sweet Disposition, which is kind of like a peach sour based on a Perfect Lady,” Jacobs says. “Then there’s Riders On The Storm, which is like a Mojito, a tiki-style drink with a bit of pine melon shrub.”
Most drinks take time to marinate. Fire & Rain, a coffee amaro whiskey blazer with spiced apricot, sat in Jacobs’ mind for the better part of a year before finding its place. “That flavour combination was something I sat on for seven or eight months,” she says. “It ended up being really, really popular.”
Then there’s Island In The Sun, a tequila pavlova milk punch built on Herradura, layered with raspberry, mango and passionfruit. Bright, fruity and textural, it’s become an early standout. “I’ve tried to keep it quite tart to mimic the tartness you get from a pavlova,” Jacobs says. “Pretty much the moment we brought that out on the first weekend, we sold out.”
Jacobs says a new menu brings the team closer. Creating and troubleshooting together is motivating for both the team and the individual. “The menus have evolved a lot. There’s always super different flavours that come with every person that makes a drink,” Jacobs says. “Every manager has brought out a menu. This is my second. It took some time to find our feet but I think we have now.”
Becca Wang
Sam Bygrave
