One thing that regularly impresses me is just how consistently the Australian bar scene puts up new bars that make me fall in love with the industry all over again.
Brisbane bar, Shaman, is the latest bar to make me feel that way.
That’s because it’s a great bar that does all the bartending things well. There’s a joy and delight to Shaman: the drinks, as bartender Amelia Low suggests in the interview below, are anything but minimalist, the music is upbeat, there’s a great big tub of frosty Estrella Damm on ice, and riffs on classic crowd pleasing drinks that are made with the right dilution, served super cold, and prioritising delicious flavour.
It was also named as the 2026 Best New Bar in Queensland presented by Bacardi on Monday night at the fourth annual Boothby Best Bars QLD Awards.
The key to that win? It’s just a bar that does things very well. And you can tell that the people who work there are enjoying it, too.
People like Amelia Low, who has orchestrated the good times on my last two visits to the bar. Below, we speak to Amelia about starting in hospitality at the ripe old age of 13 back in England, how a busy shift at Shaman runs, and why hospitality is a collaborative industry.
BOOTHBY: How long have you been in bartending? What’s your origin story?
AMELIA LOW: My origin story? Gosh, I started in hospitality when I was like 13.
BOOTHBY: 13? Wow.
AMELIA LOW: Yeah, I begged the local pub back in the UK to let me waitress for them and they did. I moved to Oxford for university, but I pretty much did hospo full-time working alongside my degree, and it was mostly pub bartending. You had a few cocktails, but nothing crazy because the Brits in the countryside don’t drink cocktails.
I didn’t want to go into a corporate job. I like the people. I’m so chatty. Even when you have your bad shifts, I think there’s still something fun about it. You still get a lot out of it. And I feel like most of my favourite people I’ve ever met in the world I have met through hospitality.
BOOTHBY: And where did you start working in Australia?
AMELIA LOW: I decided to get a part-time job at Milquetoast.
BOOTHBY: Ah, the chip butty.
AMELIA LOW: They heard my accent and went, oh, you’ll do. And then part-time turned to full-time very quickly because I realised I was way happier being back in hospitality. I heard about Shaman hiring, and knew I wanted to expand my skillset a bit more. I started working here and I love it. I worked really, really hard to develop as quickly as I could.
BOOTHBY: The drinks here are great, very different from the minimalist style bar manager Ed Quatermass used to make at Maker.
AMELIA LOW: There’s nothing minimalist about our cocktails. They’re all very maximalist. But fun to me. He’s changed his ways.
BOOTHBY: Can you describe what it’s like coming to work on a Friday, Saturday night here?
AMELIA LOW: If I’m on the early team, you’re opening up. We open at three every day, trade till midnight. When we’re on our busy nights, we’ll get full by five. And then it’s just a party slam until about 10 o’clock. We do have a little lull when people start going off to dinner, but during silly season that just didn’t let up. It was constant. You’ll come in, the music absolutely blasting. The aircon is cold, which is a positive. And there’ll just be loads of people here. Teamwork makes the dream work. And everyone has their role and you just come in, you execute well and then we’re solid.
BOOTHBY: The bar is kind of difficult to find. Where did all those people come from?
AMELIA LOW: It’s through word of mouth, especially when we first opened we didn’t have sort of any viral videos happening yet, people would find us through other bars — they’d be like, you should go down this random laneway. I have had people that just say they saw an open laneway and walked down it, and they heard the music.
BOOTHBY: What is what’s your go to drink when you knock off?
AMELIA LOW: At the moment I’ve been drinking so many Cameron’s Kicks. Also, I’d probably get a Margarita. I really like tequila. This bar has made me appreciate rums and tequilas a lot more than I probably did before.
BOOTHBY: Do you think you’re a hospo lifer?
AMELIA LOW: I think I fought against it for a little while just because I was like, ah, I have a new degree I spent loads of money on. But I really like it, I’m sorry. I’m always at my happiest when I’m doing something in hospo. All my favourite people I’ve ever met are here. It’s a really cool collaborative industry. There’s competition, yes, but it’s so much more than that. Some of the people I’ve met here have supported me so much. Even if I can’t stay in Australia for forever because of visa reasons, I will 100 percent move back to London and just go and work my butt off somewhere else.
BOOTHBY: What’s the path you see for the future? Would you like to one day own a space, or get into the ambassador life, or something else?
AMELIA LOW: That’d be so cool to own a space. We always make jokes about like, if you could own a bar, what would your bar be? Do you know what I want to own? A proper, cantina-style cocktail bar on a beach. Put me in southern Spain on a beach. That’s what I want to do. My family home is in Menorca and I’m so happy whenever I’m there. And you go to these really cool tiny hole in the wall bars that are in old fishing cottages. I would do that in a heartbeat.
Sam Bygrave
