The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) is bringing a curated group of American spirits producers to Sydney next month for a free trade tour to connect directly with importers, bartenders, and retailers. Visiting representatives include BroVo Spirits, Liberty and Plenty Distillery, Middle West, Noble Oak, Old Elk, Proof and Wood Ventures, Traverse City, Virginia Distillery Co. Alongside the visiting brands, attendees will also be able to sample new SKU’s from Ezra Brooks, High West, Jack Daniel’s, Kentucky Owl, Nelson’s Green Brier, Old Forester, Ole Smoky, Penelope, Woodford Reserve and Yellowstone.
Details: 11am – 4pm, Tuesday 28 July at Ace Hotel. Register for free here.
Welcome to Boothby’s Sydney briefing, one I’m writing from Melbourne, as I’m in town for the 2026 World Class Bartender of the Year national final.
Three Sydney-based bartenders — Eduardo Conde (No 92 GPR), Judith Zhu (Bistro Ebony), and Charles Chang (Moku and Linla) — are competing today and tonight against Brisbane’s Jacob Frisch (The Gresham), Adelaide’s Lachlan Gunner (Trap), Rohan Massie (Rude Boy) from Hobart, and Melbourne’s Kayla Saito (The Mulberry Group) and Koby Harris (Three Horses). Good luck to everyone involved, and we’ll have the winner for you later tonight.
In this newsletter I’m talking to Andres Walters, better known as Dre, and the winner of both the Most Impactful and Person of the Year titles at the Drinks 100 Australia Awards Gala in Adelaide earlier this month.
Here, he’s talking about how and why they took over an additional lease — that of the bar Since I Left You — to extend what Old Love’s is doing, more than doubling their capacity, and securing an outdoor space for the bar in the process.
The leafy garden bar will open this week, and trade until midnight every night Old Love’s is open.
Also in this newsletter, personnel changes and new gigs worth knowing about.
Let’s get into my chat with Dre.
One thing that we learned from Old Mate’s Place in Covid is that if you nail table service and lower your capacity, you actually make more money.
SAM BYGRAVE: Can you talk about what is happening at Old Love’s? You’re extending the venue into the space out the back, which used to be Since I Left You?
ANDRES WALTERS: Yeah, they’ve been around for 15 years. We knew each other just from being neighbours, you say hi, they used to put our bins out for us. There was a a really lovely relationship. He came to me one day and he was just like, hey look, I’m kind of over this. Do you do you want to take over the lease? We basically just said we’d love to.
Licensing was the biggest thing for me to wrap my head around because I didn’t know if it’s been done before, I don’t know of anyone that’s done it personally. We took two different buildings with two different owners, leased by the same person and actually have a licence over both.
The concept that we’re going for is to have this little garden oasis out the back of Old Love’s. Eventually, it’s going to be a bar within a bar out the back. But we conveniently have the building next door doing renovations. They’ve got scaffolding that goes up for 12 weeks. That hampers our plans to put a bar out the back, which would be this little rumshack out the back of Old Love’s with a tiny little kitchen — the idea is to have the jerk chicken going and really create those fun vibes.
SAM BYGRAVE: So that extends the number of people you can cater to at Old Love’s.
ANDRES WALTERS: Yeah. Even last Tuesday, when we got absolutely slammed, they were sending people away. And we really only have capacity for about 40 to 44 people — to be able to push that to 120 would be absolutely wild.
We do have the Since I Left You bar as well. That we’ll change into a a cool little function hire place, a little rum room where we can do personal tastings and flights and all the rest of it. Something a little bit more high end and a bit more personalised and catered for. I doubt we’ll be taking too many 21sts, but we want to be able to do some cool things for people.
SAM BYGRAVE: Why did you extend Old Love’s, as opposed to opening a new concept down there?
ANDRES WALTERS: Great question. I built Old Love’s with these doors out the back that open up, in the hope that one day we could do this. It was always a pipe dream. We needed doors to get out there, to get rid of the rubbish. And I knew that if this situation ever came along, these doors would be very, very handy.
You could definitely pop a new concept, a new bar in there, but when we’re busy and with the number of people that we turn away, I just thought it’d be cool to be able to have more people enjoy Old Love’s.
It also means that summer and winter will be a bit more consistent. Everyone knows basement bars kick it in winter. And then anywhere with an outside area kicks it in summer. So it’s kind of similar concept to Old Mate’s Place to a degree. You know, we didn’t know what we were doing when we built Old Mate’s [with a rooftop bar]. We had absolutely no idea that it would be great in summer and then great in winter as well, creating two spaces for two different times of year.
SAM BYGRAVE: So you’re effectively more than doubling your capacity.
ANDRES WALTERS: Our capacity at the moment is 60, but we don’t put 60 in Old Love’s. One thing that we learned from Old Mate’s Place in Covid is that if you nail table service and lower your capacity, you actually make more money. Jamming people in there doesn’t work post-Covid.
SAM BYGRAVE: How are you going to deal with the challenge of the extra scale?
ANDRES WALTERS: Well, we’ve known this is coming, so we’ve been slowly adding people into the mix. And the thing with Old Love’s is it takes you a while to wrap your head around the bar, because you are expected to know all of the 350 rums and exactly how to explain it to a customer. It takes probably about six weeks for us to really get someone’s head wrapped around the product in general. And we’re quite lucky that Since I Left You actually comes with a couple of staff. Adding them to the mix makes it a little bit easier. And then I think myself and [co-owner] Adam Cork will just live down there until we’re happy with how it goes. It’s kinda how we roll with everything really — dive in and learn how it actually works so then you can manage it accordingly.
SAM BYGRAVE: How late are you going to trade outside then?
ANDRES WALTERS: So we’re lucky. Outside’s got a licence until midnight. So we’ll push that till 12 every day that we’re open, and we just close on Mondays.
SAM BYGRAVE: Just quickly, you got a couple of nice awards in Adelaide at the Drinks 100 Australia Awards Gala — Person of the Year being the big one. How how did that feel?
ANDRES WALTERS: I’ve never been more nervous to make a speech in my whole entire life to tell you the truth.
SAM BYGRAVE: Which is unusual for you.
ANDRES WALTERS: Yeah. And getting Most Impactful was a huge surprise. So I was like, sweet, that’s me done. I wasn’t even paying attention to tell you the truth. I heard my name as one of the nominees for the Person of the Year. I was like, oh sweet, that’s nice — making up the numbers, how good? Then I wasn’t paying attention and then someone just jumped on my back and everyone was just hugs all around. And then I was like, oh shit, I have to make a speech. And I already said thank you to everyone. It was quite nerve wracking to tell you the truth. I’ve never felt that before, it’s very humbling. As I said, I can’t really do anything of this without the people around me — hospitality’s like that. You can’t do anything without the team around you. It’s got to do with them more than it has to do with me in particular.
The Last Word
Mike Enright’s Barrelhouse Group is set to re-open the historic Observer Hotel in The Rocks this October, and they’re looking for a venue manager. And in line with the British bent of the group’s other bars (The Duke of Clarence and The Barber Shop), they’ll be pouring cask ales, whisky and British eats. The venue manager gig is paying between $100k and $105k, and starts in late July.
The W Sydney is on the lookout for a new bars manager. That’s because the talented Barney Toy (ex-Clipper in Auckland, NZ) has left the role for a new challenge, and will be joining the team at the Maybe Group’s Dean & Nancy on 22.
