Bar Fly: Grain Bar

Grain Bar
199 George Street, Sydney (02) 9250 3118 grainbar.com.au
If you can’t afford a room at the Four Seasons, spend the night at its swanky hotel bar that coolly juts off the side instead. While my date was no stranger to whisky, Grain Bar’s comprehensive Scotch menu left me cross-eyed somewhere in between the Glenfarclas and the Glenfiddich. Luckily I was rescued by the bar’s ‘Whiskipedia’, Daniel, seconds before I was about to shut my eyes and make a random selection. As my date nosed her way through a Whisky Tasting ($30/4), it was the Swipe Right ($18) from Grain Bar’s new spring cocktail menu that caught my attention. While the focus might be on whisky at this artisan bar, this tart mix of gin, Cointreau, lemon and sugar shaken with mango and pepper, is what I’ll remember most. While our personalised whisky masterclass continued long into the night, we shared a trio of juicy beef, crispy chicken and pork’n’pineapple sliders ($21).