The Baxter Inn

This is a crazy place. The first time I went with friends who used to work there we were walking down an alley and going, are you sure we're going the right way? But it's not that it's a Speakeasy per se. You descend down the steps in the back of an alley into this beautiful, subterranean space that feels very classical whiskey bar in a sense, because there's lots of dark wood and low lighting. But the energy of the room - it's packed and bustling all the time. Similar to DRAM in London, they just celebrate whiskey in a very modern sense. One of the things that they pioneered was their house drink - a rye and apple juice, but they would press the apple to order and it was done ultra fresh. It was done in such an unpretentious manner, and you'd see everybody in the bar order one while they were deciding what to have, be it a whiskey of the bar or a cocktail. So much so that the team bought an apple orchard. I think it's such a wonderful example of how you can make whiskey accessible to people. They've really proven that whiskey can be for everyone because they serve so much of this drink that they're controlling their own supply of the ingredient behind it. I think it's a really great example about what Anton Forte and the team do to really take an existing trope, something that you know people have experienced in different versions around the world, but just to make it their own. The team that work there, the way that they bring their personalities into it, they've got some absolutely incredible whiskies in that bar, things you'd be jealous to find them, let alone think that you're gonna kind of stumble across it in a bar in Sydney. But they serve it in a way that gives it the appropriate gravitas. They're not being flippant about some of these very, very rare and wonderful products, but they're making them accessible to people. Some of them are are expensive because they are incredibly well sought after, but they're doing it in a manner that that feels so fun. You don't feel like there's a barrier or there's a pretension around it and you know, I think that just stems from the team and all of their care to be able to make that feel real and they want to be able to share it with people and they want their city to be excited by whiskey as much as they are. You really feel that when you go into the bar.