The Melbourne White Spirit Report

Five years ago, when a friend of mine who spins his life away as a disk jock on a popular Melbourne music station first shoved a freezing cold vodka into my hand, atop of which then he splashed a few drops of fresh juice of the lime, I thought he might just be on to something. The sun was going down, the venue was somewhere in Toorak Rd, but I remember as clear as crystal that the vodka was Stolichnaya. Welcome to the nineteen-nineties…!

Carefully-conducted recent research of mine suggest that little has since changed, with the possible exception that even more Melburnians are taking to vodka than ever.

The Geebung Polo Club in Auburn Rd, Hawthorn, is one of Melbourne’s great pubs. Able to successfully change its spots from business luncheon hole to post-office cleansing and refuelling station to nite-time venue for the young and the hopeful, it draws its clientele from all ages and backgrounds. Paul Traynor is its licencee.

‘There’s little doubt that vodka is the drink of the moment. It’s huge now, beserk, with a leg in the air, literally!’, he cracks. The Geebung’s vodka enthusiasts prefer it taken in a mix with lime and soda or else just with lime itself. Their favourite brands are – you guessed it: Stolichnaya! – plus the Geebung’s house brand, an Inchcape-distributed Australian make guilefully branded as Czar Vodka. And I thought the Romanoffs preferred sweet Champagne!

Paul Traynor says his next biggest white spirit is Galliano’s Sambuca, which his clients generally elect to take neat, usually in shots. His third biggest-selling white spirit is white rum, 100 of which is Bacardi, the only brand stocked by the Geebung and a number of Melbourne’s other leading hotels.

Next it’s gin, whose sales over the bar are around a tenth of vodka’s. Most is sold as gin and tonic or gin squash, mainly as the Geebung’s house brand, Fairway, distributed via Alexander & Paterson. Paul Traynor says he also needs to restock his Gordons from time to time.

Although it’s a premix, the alcoholic soda Subzero surely fits into the white spirit market simply because it has taken so many sales away from white spirits over the bar. With a taste remarkably reminiscent of vodka, lime and soda, its sales have reached ‘monstrous’ proportions at the Geebung, occasionally more than 30 cases per week over the bar! Although it’s only sold off-premise at the Geebung, UDL’s new Vodka Lemon Lime premixed can is also doing great business there.

Takis Scordas runs the Rose, in Bay St, Port Melbourne. His weekday market is generally older and more business-based that the Geebung’s, but vodka is clearly the Rose’s number one white spirit. Again mainly sold with various combinations of lime, lemon and ice, Takis Scordas says he still sells some with Coke uggh! and not infrequently with orange juice for lunch. ‘Screwdrivers and Harvery Wallbangers are also popular with lunch’, he says.

It’s women who drink more white spirit than men, suggests Takis Scordas, who guesses that about sixty percent of white spirit sold at the Rose is enjoyed by women. The Rose’s three main vodka lines are Smirnoff, Stoli and Absolut which, according to Takis Scordas, has never looked back since its repackage and relaunch in the 1980s.

Takis is also doing his level best to infect the Rose’s customers with his own sense of the bizzare and different with gin, showing them how to drink Bols Genever properly – straight and warm – and why the top Bombay Blue Sapphire gin from Swift and Moore leaves the rest for dead in terms of flavour and balance. ‘I’ve got people screaming for it now’, he admits.

Staris Latkas is Manager at the Deco Bar at Melbourne’s Grand Hyatt. As you’d expect at the leading cocktail bar of a major international five-star hotel, his clientele would probably consider themselves a little more sophisticated and refined than the daily visitors to the Geebung or the Rose, but their tastes in white spirits have much in common.

Although the Deco Bar is a major cocktail venue – which incidentally sold over 1,000 cocktails in the month of March and will do even better in April – Stolichnaya again rides high as number one white spirit, Smirnoff a comfortable second. But it’s of little coincidence in a true cocktail bar that white rum also does well here, especially sold in daiquiris and Mai Tais.

James Bond knows his spirits, and so the drinkers at the Deco, where the Stolichnaya Martini is a regular order, one presumes stirred and not shaken. More women choose Stoli and gin then men, says Staris Latkas, who finds his male customers often fall back on the scotch or beer. Gin also does good business at the Deco in its more traditional role as bridegroom in a true Martini, but also with tonic and soda. Beefeater is the Deco Bar’s leading gin.

And right against the grain, the Deco Bar’s most popular cocktail in March was the Margharita, which of course is based on tequila. Whether this is indicative of a new Melbourne trend remains presently unclear, for the Hyatt has been actively engaged in the promotion of Swift and Moore’s Cuervo Especial tequila.

But, if you’re still a little confused and hesitant on which white spirit to be seen to be drinking, simply order them all at once, in the same glass! Pour in gin, vodka, white rum, tequila and cointreau into a long glass with ice and you have a lethal concotion able to please even the least decisive barfly of all time. And of course I didn’t invent it and it does have a name – The Long England Iced Tea! Please login to post comment