From farmers markets to Highballs, how Disco Pantera is pouring nostalgia

In partnership with Hendrick’s Curious Gin Trail through the north end of Sydney city. Six great bars are involved, with delicious Hendrick’s serves on offer at Apollonia, Aster, Disco Pantera, Frank Mac's, Martinez, and The Doss House.

Sydney bar Disco Pantera had a great year in 2025. They picked up the title of best new bar at the Boothby Best Bars NSW awards back in July, and on a bigger scale, received global acclaim when they were awarded the best bar design trophy at The World’s 50 Best Bars in Hong Kong.

More importantly, perhaps, they’ve got a growing crowd of regular punters and business is doing well.

That’s in part thanks to the delicious drinks they have on offer, some of which — as co-owner Ross Purnell explains in the interview and the video below — have some smart techniques employed in service of the search for flavour.

Below, Ross talks about what you can expect at Disco Pantera (it’s actually two bars, split across two levels), his approach to developing drinks, the power of nostalgia — and shares a couple of inspired recipes, too.

BOOTHBY: Alright, where are we, Ross?

ROSS PURNELL: Where are we? in Disco Pantera, a cocktail bar in Sydney’s CBD. We’ve got a couple of Hendrick’s drinks going on for the months of January and February. We’re excited about it.

BOOTHBY: You had quite a big year last year, didn’t you?

ROSS PURNELL: It was pretty fun.

BOOTHBY: We saw you somewhere in Hong Kong, at a little ceremony called The World’s 50 Best Bars.

ROSS PURNELL: Yeah. It was an interesting one, actually. We won a little competition. We won the best bar design category at the 50 Best Bars, which was an amazing experience.

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BOOTHBY: It’s an award voted on by design experts around the world.

ROSS PURNELL: The panel was a bunch of different people from hospitality, to access consultants, to interior designers, architects. It was pretty good. It was obviously our first bar as well, me and my brother — and my girlfriend actually did the interior design of the space and it was actually the first project she's ever run on her own. That's why she said no originally to that.

I always knew she was the right person for the job. The way she looks at a space, and the way that she thinks about colour and sculpture and shapes, I learn something new every day from her.

BOOTHBY: For people who haven't been here, what's Disco Pantera all about? There's two levels to this place.

ROSS PURNELL: We've got Tigra downstairs and we've got Disco Pantera upstairs. Tigra's a little 16-seater wine bar and snacks. We do cocktails down there, but it's mainly Martinis and Negronis, that kind of thing. Upstairs, we're more focused on cocktails, and music's a big part of what we do. We have DJs Fridays and Saturdays, and we want to extend that program throughout. Really focusing on funk, soul, disco all the way through to electronic music, a little bit of house.

People are shying away from having live music and entertainment in the venues. It's sad for all these artists who are out there. It really stunts the creativity of music in the future. We are quite passionate about it, we lean into it.

BOOTHBY: Cocktails are a big focus up here. Great drinks. Just walk us through the Hendrick’s drinks you have on the list.

ROSS PURNELL: When I come up with a drink I always think of nostalgia, I think of times of my youth. Tasting a piece of fruit for the first time, or something like that. And melon and Hendrick’s work really well together. We’ve got a super fresh, highball style serve based around some frogskin melon and a little bit of watermelon as well.

BOOTHBY: And then you've got a treat when it's finished too.

ROSS PURNELL: Yeah, because we eat these little frozen melon balls. Melon balls are hilarious as well. I'm a man born in the 80s. So I remember these from top cuisine, you know, from fancy restaurants. I love all that stupid stuff. It's a nice way to serve Hendrick’s and soda, basically.

BOOTHBY: And then you've got a Ramos take — you're kind of famous for your Ramos. You made a mistake of putting one on the list once, and you can never take it off.

ROSS PURNELL: Yeah, but it's a really fun drink and it's, I mean, it was always a drink designed to cool you down in those hot New Orleans days. Sydney's got that kind of humidity and it's got that heat a lot of the time.

I go to Carriageworks farmers market every Saturday. And one particular farm that I always get fruit from is a farm called Prickle Hill in New South Wales. And they do the best citrus fruit I've ever had. They do the best stone fruits I've ever had. The stone fruits are really coming into a good time at the moment. So I just buy a big bag and bring them back and turn it into little syrup.

We compressed nectarines and peaches for this one. So vacpack with sugar — we’re trying to extract all of that flavour, as much as possible, into the syrup without using too much sugar to make it too thick.

So I've inherited a sweet tooth from my mother; the drink's called the Angeline Fizz — she's called Angela. This one's to you, Mum.

I remember going to little bakeries with her and having a Danish pastry with a little bit of nectarine. Man, that was just blew my mind. I just wanted to emulate that.

Rather than use pastry, we used a little bit of focaccia to infuse into the cream, just to get those kind of bread notes. I mean, it's all the same stuff anyway. Some Hendrick's gin, fresh nectarines and peaches pulled out into the syrup. Topped off with a little bit of mandarin soda as well.

BOOTHBY: I love a bit of mandarin soda.

ROSS PURNELL: A little pinch of salt as well.

BOOTHBY: Pops?

ROSS PURNELL: Yeah.

BOOTHBY: I've got some Hendrick’s lightning round questions for you, too. Hendrick’s is doing this open air cinema thing, so I have some movie questions for you. Is there a bar in a movie that you'd love to get to in real life, have you got one in mind?

ROSS PURNELL: Yeah. One springs to mind. It's from Goodfellas, that absolute classic scene of them going through the back of the restaurant bar, a table comes out, sits right in front of the stage and live music playing. To me, that is just like the epitome of like what a beautiful hospitality moment should look like.

BOOTHBY: You have to explain what they do for a job to get that kind of service. But bring out the table and make room for you?

ROSS PURNELL: Yeah, man, would love to be at that level, obviously in hospitality, not talking about anything else.

BOOTHBY: You’re not out there whacking people. Is there a drink from a movie that you are a fan of?

ROSS PURNELL: Yeah, again, music’s a big part of what we do. My brother’s definitely more of the music aficionado than me, growing up we used to watch Blues Brothers all the time. There’s no explanation about what the drink is, but they just walk into a bar and order an orange whip.

And I reckon, [this Ramos], might be it.