What do the Dirty Martini, Bloody Mary and Sbagliato have in common?

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 am contemplating the value and culture of forecasting drink trends and if any of it makes a difference to bars and bartenders.

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).

I, Becca Wang, am to dining and drinking trends as a meteorologist is to a major weather event: 

• keeping an eye on things
• telling many friends about it
• afraid the city will never recover. 

Every time I go out, I am the little man in the proverbial lighthouse, waiting for a twinkle in the distance of something new – is it an octopus crudo? Is it a contemporary take on Tex-Mex? No, it’s yet another savoury cocktail with freshly cracked pepper! 

How does one know when summer is approaching? It’s not the earlier sunrise or the 10am pit stains – it’s the onslaught of drink trend predictions from your favourite booze publication (us) to culture blogs in niche corners of the internet. If we’ve learnt anything from the internet age, it’s that everyone wants to know what everyone else wants to drink, no matter how unpalatable it might be. (I, like many others, are still wondering how the Dirty Martini hurdled over the fourth wall last summer.)  

Recent trends are particularly reflective of our recreational and consumption behaviours. In the current economy, most people can’t afford to dine and drink out as often as they used to and this is showing up in the wave of three-sipper cocktails in twee glasses. They’re the perfect size and price to enjoy a familiar luxury without over-forking. Similarly, the Dirty Martini’s popularity could be attributed to the price of produce and the minimal ingredients required; olives and pickled onions have a longer shelf life and are more affordable than citrus and egg whites. 

Social media is the undeniable driving force behind most drinking trends in the last five years, especially since the TikTokification of media has allowed people to show others how they create their drink of choice. People want to know how someone makes and enjoys a Bloody Mary that resembles a prawn cocktail – it’s simple, easy and evokes morbid curiosity. The unexpected virality of Emma D’Arcy’s sound bite meant that all bartenders have now laughed at a customer who has ordered a Sbagliato thinking it tastes as fruity as it looks. A drink can capture audiences and turn people to new habits, recipes and bars overnight – no dish has had the same effect yet. Think, everyone could know what a Tuxedo No. 2 is within a few days – horrific.   

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Do drinking trends trickle down from bars and bartenders? Or does the consumer and social media create the pretense for bars to subsequently follow suit? In the 2000s and early 2010s, bars had less say than the media in trends. Television led drinking trends like no other – Don Draper’s Old Fashioned and Carrie Bradshaw’s Cosmopolitan were inescapable. Nowadays, it’s almost equal. Notwithstanding, bartenders must – consciously or subconsciously – observe the drinking habits and cultural landscape of who and what they’re serving to be interesting, relevant and lucrative. It’s a tough game to play: people want to create drinks they think are delicious but there’s nothing more soul-damning than a customer reading the menu front to back then resorting to a Margarita. Those who get the choice of balancing authenticity and pandering to the layman know that it’s a fine line.    

This summer, it’s hard to say which drink will reign. Some are saying it’s going to be Highballs and Midori while others are championing the low-alc power of vermouth and amaro. I think (and quietly desire) the vermouth and tonic to have its time in the light –Sspritzes are so last year and quite often made badly. Regardless, the drink of the summer will be something that parallels the lipstick effect — our need for little luxuries in times of economic downturn. And most importantly, I hope it will be a drink best consumed out in the Queensland sun. 

The Last Word

• Milquetoast is discontinuing their signature chip butty from 1 September. Owner George Curtis says: “All good things come to an end. It’s reached its peak and we want to challenge ourselves to do it again with something else. There’s been talk of a fish finger butty with house tartare sauce and some other ideas but whatever we do it’ll be exciting and fresh. Plus, the chefs are fed up with prepping so many!”
• Loic Mouchelin of Santé wins the 2025 Christian Drouin Calvados x Cheese competition.
• Alice Bar is on the hunt for a new General Manager.
• Greenhorn at The Gresham is taking place 14 September. Entries due 31 August.