Scout Sydney – an outpost of current 28th-best bar in the world, Scout London – wasn’t around for long. It opened at the top of Surry Hills pub the Dolphin Hotel in March last year, with magnificent drinks created by founder Matt Whiley, but by December it was gone. Though we only had it for a short time, the avant-garde bar – which fermented fruit into wine and used centrifuges and evaporators in the drink-making process – left a mark on the city’s drinks scene.
Whiley has plans to open a permanent site later this year, but until then we have this: ES x Scout. The bottled cocktail is made in collaboration with Empirical Spirits, a drinks company that is as passionate about innovation as he is.
Whiley chose as his base The Plum, I Suppose – a spirit infused with plum stone for an almond-like flavour. “I instantly fell in love with The Plum, I Suppose and had a lot of fun playing around with the versatile spirit,” Whiley said in a statement. “I clarified some ‘ugly’ plums, made a pickle strawberry shrub with passionfruit, lemon and cinnamon and made a salted caramel utilising the brine that’s usually thrown out.”
The drink is the third in a lockdown series in which Empirical Spirits enlists top bars from around the world to craft bottled cocktails, with proceeds going to charities of the bars’ choice. Past collaborations have been with Lyaness in London and Little Red Door in Paris. The cocktails are shipped worldwide, and $10 from each bottle of Whiley’s concoction will go to Race Forward, a not-for-profit working towards racial justice. High Hopes, which imports and distributes Empirical Spirits in Australia, will match that with a donation to the Aboriginal Legal Service.
Scout is the first Australian bar to be involved in the series, but Empirical Spirits plans on getting more Aussie bars in on the action in 2020. Fans of Whiley’s unconventional cocktails can order bottles from P&V and Drnks, as well as High Hopes Wine.
Empirical Spirits was founded in Copenhagen by Lars Williams and Mark Emil, who met while tinkering with ferments and distillations at Noma’s Nordic Food Lab. It was introduced to Australia last year and has garnered much attention for its spirit Fuck Trump and His Fucking Wall, which is made with more than one kilogram of chillis per bottle.
ES x Scout is available in Australia for $75 from P&V and Drnks. Each 375 millilitre bottle contains four drinks.
