Welcome to Sidecar No Sugar, a weekly Boothby newsletter about Brisbane bars and the people, work and creativity that grounds it. (You can sign up to get it in your inbox each week, right here.) This week, I chatted to Jay Tuncer Tokmak, bartender and now owner of Corbins, a new neighbourhood cocktail bar in Maroochydore.
If you have info the Brisbane bar community should know, please email me contact@beccawang.com.au or send me a message via Instagram (@supper.partying).
Jay Tuncer Tokmak is passionate about classic cocktails. So much so that he’s flipped Corbins, a casual pan-Asian eatery in Maroochydore, into a classic cocktail bar of his own.
Tokmak has worked in hospitality for over a decade, both here in Australia and overseas. His career began in Turkey at the Calista Luxury Resort before moving to Australia, where he worked at several hotels in Sydney, before moving to Brisbane and managing bar programs at W Brisbane and the Emporium Hotel South Bank. He was recognised as runner-up for Brisbane’s Best Bartender by the Courier Mail in 2020.
Today, he lives in Maroochydore, and most recently led the team at Boston Shaker Bar in Mooloolaba. Alongside venue management, he’s also written accredited hospitality content and trained students for bar certifications.
But after a decade of service, Tokmak has decided to take the reins. He believes the coast has potential — especially with bars like Boston Shaker and W.A.T Den popping up over the years.
“The Sunshine Coast has a good population but we’re five years behind Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, where people are exposed to [more] drinking culture and trends,” Tokmak tells me. “We do have a demographic who crave a really good Margarita or Negroni, but there are places here that don't get it quite right because of the skillset — it’s not as common or widely available as it is in the bigger cities.”
Tokmak has replaced Corbins’ coffee station with a spirits well, and the space retains its simple fitout and darker colour palette. He’s also changed the food menu to reflect his Turkish background: local sourdough with za’atar butter, baba ghanoush, hummus with zhoug. Main-sized plates like a fish sandwich with tzatziki and lamb skewers with aleppo pepper and cucumber borani are also available.
The current drinks menu is made up of 14 crowdpleaser classics and a handful of wines and beers on tap. After settling in, Tokmak says he will explore more food-inspired numbers like a baklava cocktail.
Coincidentally, Tokmak’s landlord Joe Riba is an ex-lawyer turned distiller who is in the process of opening The Law, a gin and vodka distillery at the back of Corbins. They’ll be working closely together to produce spirits that will be featured on Corbins’ menu. Riba’s spirits will use produce from his garden so that they’ll “be able to tell a story of what’s available around us,” Tokmak says.
The Last Word
- Anyday’s new Mediterranean restaurant Golden Avenue and bar GA will be open next Tuesday 26 August.
- Congrats to Brisbane’s own Bar Aizome, which was named Bar of the Year at the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Awards earlier in the week — read about bar manager Tony Huang in this previous newsletter, here.
