It’s a new year baby and we have a couple of hot venues - to go with the current temperatures - that we are introducing to our Surry Hills and Potts Point dining walk offer.
Brix Distillers
Brix is Sydney’s only dedicated craft rum distillery and bar situated on leafy Bourke Street in the heart of Surry Hills. Through a combined distillery, cellar door and hospitality space, Brix introduces the public to an experience that is as informative and enlightening as it is inspiring and delightful.
Brix is smart, but never stuffy: think polished concrete, Molly the copper pot on one wall, along with half a dozen barrels of rum and an open kitchen. All fronted by a pumping bar with just the right amount of ‘hipster gene’ in each barman. The bar is stocked with a range of ultra-premium hand-crafted Rums that are created on the premises.
The crew at Brix Distillers believe its time for rum to grow up, saluting Rum’s dark history and striving for its bright future. Bringing craft rum into the 21st century so it can take its place alongside other fine food and beverages.
Co-founders Damien Barrow, James Christopher and Siddharth Soin have engaged the talent of Colombian chef Ivan Sanchez, formerly of Bodega and Porteno, to create a South American flavoured menu complimentary to the taste of rum.
As you may or may not know Sydney was built on rum. Forty-five thousand gallons of the stuff was paid to contractors to construct the general hospital on Macquarie Street, or what was colloquially called the “Rum Hospital”. (The hospital south wing is now the Mint, and the north wing is the New South Wales Parliament House.)
In Sydney’s early colonial days the spirit was used as currency, and the only time the Australian government has been overthrown by a military coup (in 1808) is an event now called the “Rum Rebellion” because the corps responsible were heavily involved in the rum trade. But the creation of Brix is about much more than a proud rediscovering of Sydney’s adventurous, free-booting heritage where rum was the spirit of choice and the fuel of rebellion. It’s about educating a new, more discerning audience to appreciate the qualities and subtleties of one of the world’s great spirits.
Allowing the rum explorer to meet the artisans behind this timeless craft product. To learn how rich Australian molasses is turned, via copper kettles and stills, into the burnished spirit swirling in their glass. Even the name itself has its origins in the very essence of what the crew do: brix is actually the measurement of sugar in a solution of rum.
