Talented people are doing excellent things in the drinks arena right now. Sydney’s best new bars span Negroni dens and vibey restaurant holding areas, wine bars with finer plates and one that feels like a perpetual house party. The latest to land – on Enmore Road, a stretch loaded with indie favourites – is Bar Demo, and it’s a proper little bar that’s keeping up with its neighbours.

“We don’t have a kitchen, so we’re definitely a bar,” Claudia “Beryl” Morgan laughs. She’s just opened Demo together with Olly Churcher. The bartending duo met working at Double Deuce, the CBD speakeasy known for its cracking little clutch of cocktails.

Broadsheet’s at the window table drinking The Full Bush, a sexy interpretation of a cocktail Churcher created at Double Deuce. Whole albums are being played start to finish on vinyl from a custom sound system (made by locals Translate Sound), and there are people leaning on the bar and piled into small booths.

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“We wanted to do something that referenced our old workplace,” he says of the drink. “The original was a bourbon, yuzu citrusy sour. But for this [there’s a] combination of that warm, mellow sweetness of the bourbon and then that earthy spiciness of gochujang. It’s not really spicy, it’s more warming.” Atop rides a full bush of flame-red silgochu, threads of Korean dried chillies.

Then there’s the hot-and-cold +/- Colada, “a cold Pina Colada base that’s clarified with a hot white chocolate foam on top” served in a mini coupe and “designed to drink really fast”. The house Martini, poured straight from the ice-cream freezer in the bar, is the current number-one order.

Understandably, cocktails have been a huge hit. But the pair opened Demo for the wine. They’re enthusiasts, not experts, with that energy delivering a list that touches Australia, Japan and Slovenia. “We basically just drank a shitload of wine and found things we like,” Churcher says. “We both spent the last couple of years working at wine-focused venues – Claudia was at the Bentley Group and I was at Cafe Paci and Bar Louise.”

The list is natural leaning, but not by design. Those drops are simply what the pair were into. They’ve developed a rotating 12-glass mix – spanning two sparklings, four whites, four reds, a pink and an orange – that you can drink as a small or large pour. And each day there’ll be one special pick from the 60-bottle list to drink by the glass, too.

No kitchen means no “real food”, but snacky bits – like LP’s charcuterie, Chappy’s chippies and tins of anchovies – will keep you centred. And the team is about to launch monthly snack takeovers, with Cafe Paci’s Pasi Petänen popping in with six plates (all under $20, all designed to eat with your hands) on Sunday July 27.

Demo landed in the “number-one location” – the strip is chockers with small bars with distinct personalities. And it keeps up. Pulling up for a Full Bush and some chippies is proof that there’s plenty of room in the buzzy inner west pocket.

“It really is a community,” Morgan says. “Like, our ice machine didn’t arrive on time, it was stuck on a ship, so we were borrowing ice from Jacoby’s up the road. Everyone’s been very supportive around here – we send people their way, they send people our way. It’s great.”

Bar Demo
85 Enmore Road, Newtown

Hours:
Wed to Sat 5pm–midnight

bardemo.com
@bardemosyd