For this drink, inspired by the striking glow worm tunnel in a disused train tunnel in Helensburgh, Dominic has gone long on Australian ingredients, and the colour blue — as he explains, lightly edited and condensed, below.
BOOTHBY: Tell us about your drink, Nocturnal Desire, and what it’s inspired by?
DOMINIC PACITTO: With Bombay Hidden Jewels, we’re going for that kind of blue theme. A bit too boring to go for the ocean. I think that could be a common theme around here. Instead, we’ve got the Glow Worm Tunnel in Helensburgh.
BOOTHBY: A little bit different. Tell us all about that.
DOMINIC PACITTO: It’s something I hadn’t heard of either, a beautiful old closed train tunnel. You’ve got all these bioluminescent worms in the ceiling. It looks crazy. My partner grew up around there, so I heard about that and it links in with the unusual theme we’ve got going on around here as well.
BOOTHBY: Talk about Pleasure Club. How would you describe it if people haven’t been here yet?
DOMINIC PACITTO: It’s odd. We get all kinds of different kind of artists, music. We’ve got that late night feel, but in the early night you can come and enjoy some jazz — we’ve got a little bit of everything for everyone. A nice bit of variation for Newtown as well, I think. There’s not too many people that do it quite like we do here.
BOOTHBY: How long have you worked here?
DOMINIC PACITTO: Since February 2026.
BOOTHBY: What goes into the day-to-day to keep the ship afloat?
DOMINIC PACITTO: A lot of prep. We’ve got a few weird techniques we use for lot of our cocktails. Even though we are very nightclub heavy, it’s nice to have those bespoke, more artisan cocktails that we do. A lot of man hours get put into that, learning all the different machinery we’ve got back there.
BOOTHBY: And what are the hours like? Because it does go quite late here.
DOMINIC PACITTO: It’s one of those, you love it or you hate it, you know? A lot of people couldn’t possibly do it, you know, get home at 5 a.m. but I’ve been doing it for years and years. It suits me.
BOOTHBY: Tell us what’s in the drink — walk us through it step by step because it’s all carbonated in the end.
DOMINIC PACITTO: So I wanted to use a lot of natives, to give it a bit more interesting spin. The Bombay Sapphire has been put through a rotovap with the native plums, which is a very sour plum that grows in New South Wales. They’re really sour. But when you run things through the rotovap, flavours like sour and spicy, they can’t be carried through to the final product. So you end up with this really bold and fruity gin that doesn’t carry any of those sour flavours that come with the fresh fruit. To go with that, you’ve got a Rinquinquin, which is quite a dry peach aperitif, an orange oleo tonic, and a little bit of blue curacao for that nice blue colour. And just a drip of lemon verbena distillate, which is a native leaf — incredibly lemony. Once you let that sit in something for a while, it gives you almost like a lemon sweet taste. There’s just a very small amount in that there because it’s very overpowering.
It’s kind of like a Americano and a white Negroni kind of love child vibe, it’s a little bit on the bitter side.
But you know, it’s a sun vibe. So I think should go down a treat.
BOOTHBY: And it’s blue.
DOMINIC PACITTO: Yeah, it’s blue. Who doesn’t love a blue drink?
Nocturnal Desire
Davidson plum Bombay Sapphire gin, Marionette Blue Curaçao, peach aperitif, lemon verbena, orange tonic
Ingredients:
- 30ml native plum-infused Bombay Sapphire Gin
- 20ml Rinquinquin à la Pêche
- 2.5ml lemon verbena distillate
- 5ml Marionette Blue Curaçao
- 75ml orange oleo tonic
Method: Carbonate all ingredients and serve tall over ice; garnish the glass with port dust.
Created for Pleasure Club by Dominic Pacitto, Pleasure Club
