Welcome to the next in a series of stories showcasing one drink, one bartender, at one great bar. This series is made possible by Brown-Forman's Elevate program — to learn more, contact your Brown-Forman representative.
When Deadwax opened on Enmore Road on July 31 last year, things were — to say the least — a little hectic.
“I’m lying down under [the bar] fixing plumbing because it still wasn’t all done,” says co-owner Conor O’Brien. “They were setting up and guests are walking in and ordering cocktails.
“[It was] our first chaos, train wreck night.”
Things have improved since then, with the bar celebrating its first birthday last month, having quickly found a community in Enmore, with a mix of locals and guests from further afield.
“This is one of the best places in the country to be, O’Brien says. “There’s a lot of people who live nearby as well, so we’ve got a ton of regulars, we know their name, we know what they’re drinking, we’ve met part of their family and that sort of thing. It is nice to have both gears, where you’ve also got people who come for a concert at the Enmore Theatre and while they’re here, they’re sticking their head in because they read about this place or someone else recommended it to them.”
One big reason people keep coming back is the drinks, and cocktails like this one O’Brien shares in the video and recipe below.
Conor O'Brien from Deadwax. Video: Boothby
BOOTHBY: Tell us about Deadwax. It’s a bar here in Enmore, what’s the big idea behind it?
CONOR O’BRIEN: The whole point of Deadwax was to create essentially a vinyl listening bar, but we’re pretty heavy on a cocktail focus, pretty heavy on bar snacks, and playing around with different genres of music. And trying to make it a bit interactive — four nights of the week you can actually come and request the songs you want to hear. We’ve got these little dummy records which you can flick through, which adds a bit of fun to it. It’s supposed to be just a nice fun place.
And it’s supposed to sound amazing. Another really big point [for us] was really good speakers, a ridiculous amount of soundproofing, so the whole venue feels like a studio but with a crowd in it.
BOOTHBY: Tell us about this drink you've made with Woodford Reserve.
CONOR O’BRIEN: For Old Fashioned month in August we're running with the classic Old Fashioned and a little riff that I've been wanting to try for a few months. This is a little riff we’ve been wanting to try here for a while. This is called Isn’t Shiso Pearcious? It's a bit of a train wreck. I named it. I shouldn't name things.
BOOTHBY: I got the first pun and then bam! There’s another pun...
CONOR O’BRIEN: It’s serving a cocktail out of these little soy sauce bottles, I thought it was a fantastic idea. It fits with our venue, so I thought we’d give it a whirl.
It’s kinda as it sounds: pear and shiso. So roasted pears, we spiced that up, turned that into a syrup, and then shiso infused into some calvados to bring in both that herbaceous, slight savoury, earthy kind of flavour, as well as lifting the pear aromatics as well.
All that paired with your Woodford Reserve and a little bit of soy sauce because a), theme, and b) for seasoning. Really bringing in that that touch of umami, that little bit of saltiness, and lifting everything up as well.
BOOTHBY: So how much soy sauce is too much soy sauce?
CONOR O’BRIEN: Oh, it's really delicate. I'm doing seven drops per drink and it's a tiny, tiny drop. But if you do nine or 10, all of a sudden you only taste soy sauce.
BOOTHBY: Deadwax has just turned one year old, yes?
CONOR O’BRIEN: Our first chaos, train wreck night. That was 31st of July last year. They all hated me. We had all the ingredients made, but nothing was batched or bottled so they're in here, they're batching, about an hour before that they were in the bathrooms painting. Meanwhile, they're we’re setting up and guests are walking in and ordering cocktails. They're down here shaking drinks, one of the taps doesn't work — so I'm lying down under there fixing plumbing because it still wasn't all done.
That was a year ago, which was feels like yesterday.
BOOTHBY: How does it feel to get to that one year mark with this place?
CONOR O’BRIEN: Amazing. This is our second bar. Our first one’s a very low-key, casual locals bar. This one is more conceptual, I guess, and having people come in, see what we’re doing, love what we’re doing and come back, and really gel with everything that we’ve provided the last year: all of the live events, all of the drinks, the food, the whole thing, people are really, really digging it.
People are loving the karaoke room now, they’re starting to use it at 7pm. And then you go in an hour later and there’s thirty people in there and it’s like walking through a mosh pit. It’s great.
BOOTHBY: What is some karaoke room etiquette that people should observe?
CONOR O’BRIEN: Try not to cue up six songs in a row. There’s there’s so many people in there that wanna have a go. So try and cue one or two songs and then just let the songs catch up. Don’t skip other people’s songs. That’s a big one. Don’t yuck anyone’s yum. Another big one: don’t try and hog the karaoke room. It’s public access. You have to go through there to get to the bathrooms. It’s a free room. We don’t charge, we don’t do bookings. It’s just there. So you don’t get to own it — you’ve got to share it with anyone else that wants to come in and be part of it.
Shiso Pearcious
Ingredients
- 40ml Woodford Reserve Bourbon
- 10ml Calvados (freeze infused with Shiso leaf)
- 5ml Carpano Bianco
- 12ml Grilled pear syrup
- 0.3g soy sauce (7 drops)
- 60ml water
Method
- Batched, bottled and chilled.
- Served with ice and a shiso leaf.
Recipe by Conor O’Brien, Deadwax, Enmore.
The art of making fine bourbon first took place on the site of the Woodford Reserve Distillery, a National Historic Landmark, in 1812. The perfectly balanced taste of our Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey is comprised of more than 200 detectable flavour notes, from bold grain and wood, to sweet aromatics, spice, and fruit & floral notes.Woodford Reserve is an innovative bourbon, showcasing a rich and colourful flavour unlike any other Kentucky bourbon.
Drink Responsibly. Woodford Reserve is a registered trademark.
