We met up with a few friends at The Baxter Inn, yesterday, a basement whiskey honky-tonk of great style and true awesomeness, half way between Darling Harbour’s Sea Life Aquarium and Pitt Street in Sydney’s CBD, and equidistant to Wynyard and Town Hall train stations in 152-156 Clarence St.
The little brother of Darlinghurst-based Shady Pines Saloon, The Baxter Inn opened only a few years ago, but has already become the established star of the Sydney bar scene.
The entrance is well-hidden in a dark backyard of an industrial building. Often the lines of admirers stretch all the way to the street, though, giving good indication of the direction of the entrance. The atmosphere inside is dominated by dimmed warm light, heavy wooden furniture, and – the center piece of the bar – a giant, beautifully backlit wall of whisky, whose upper shelves are only accessible by scrolling ladders, so you at any point in time you’ll see at least one of the well-coiffed bartenders climbing across the wall in order to pick a scotch, a bourbon, rye, or another variety of this fermented grain mash based, alcoholic drink.
The drinks list is nearly endless, if someone has distilled it somewhere on this planet at some stage, chances are The Baxter Inn will store it. They are especially impressive on rare Japanese varieties.
If you’re based in Europe with no plans to travel to Australia anytime soon, you can still enjoy The Baxter Inn’s great cocktails and charm during their residency this May at London’s famous Bloomsbury Club Bar (BCB). We’ll certainly pop over to the club to have a sip. Liked this post? Feel welcome to eyeball our posts about our escape room experience, a short history of luxury food, a mask ball in Venice, our visit to the Paris catacombs, the time we jumped out of an airplane, went ice skating, kayaking, and took a course to learn how to do stand-up comedy.
