Q&A with bartender of the year Tim Philips

Euan McKirdy speaks to Tim Philips, the Diageo Reserve World Class bartender of the year, about his award, his new bar and the changing cocktail culture.

Philips was crowned bartender of the 2012 in July last year, beating 50 other finalists to win one of the industry’s most prestigious awards; he won with his take on a Hot Toddy. Following the win Philips has opened his own bar in Sydney and Euan McKirdy met Philips in Hong Kong to chat about his influences, thoughts and his award.

DBHK: Is this your first time to HK professionally?

Tim Philips: Professionally, yes. I came here as a backpacker on a 24-hour stopover about five years ago so I’ll probably see the city in a different light. Back then we bought the cheapest bottle of gin we could find, to enjoy a few responsible gin and tonics, before we hit the cheapest parts of town so it’ll be nice to see some of the better bars.

DBHK: So you’ve gone from backpacker to Diageo World Champion in that space of time?

TP: That could be a good analogy. I started when I was 17 polishing glasses in a country Victoria pub. It was a footie guys getting into fights, pots of beer and chicken parmesan kind of place. From there, the natural progression for an Australian bartender is to get into the nightclub world, so I did that for a few years. But I got sick of working until six in the morning, so I worked in cocktail bars, then I travelled for a few years and then came back. Now I’ve relocated to Sydney from Melbourne and I opened my own bar three weeks ago.

DBHK: Since you started working in bars, how has the cocktail culture changed?

TP: Even as an 18-year-old bartender you see the national bartending magazine so remembering old issues of that, there was a lot of fruit, a lot of juice; puree, 10-11 years ago in Australian bartending. We’ve progressed since then and taken a lot of cues from British drinking culture, a lot of more direct, citrus-style drinks like the Tom Collins or the daiquiri.

DBHK: Would you say Australia has one of the more sophisticated bar cultures in the world at this point?

TP: Yes and no. Sophisticated? Maybe not so much – Australia’s drinking culture has developed a lot since the 1970s when you saw people taking coffins of beer to the cricket. You can see the development in the increase in spirit and wine sales, in comparison to the cheap quaffing beer and boxes of wine, so we’re on the right path. I think our palates are not as fine tuned as those in London or NY or even countries like Italy where bitterness has always been appreciated. That’s still in its infancy in Australia and bitterness is still seen as something bad. We’re getting there.

DBHK: What does your Diageo title mean to you?

TP: On a solely selfish level, it’s the greatest honour a bartender can win globally. I think from a personal level, having a title for bar team of the year or bringing up a bartender so they do well is, for me, a lot more satisfying. I’ll definitely wear the tiara of world’s best bartender but I can’t let that get to my head. But yeah, it’s amazing.

DBHK: Would you say it’s influenced how you work?

TP: It’s made me a better bartender without a doubt. It can go either way. I’ve always said that competing in “World Class” will make you a better bartender but winning a world class regardless of whether it’s nationally, or at a state level or whatever, won’t necessarily make you a better bartender. It’s what you take from it and I guess winning world class has helped me develop my toasting skills – you have to be on your toes. Everyone’s a blogger and people are coming in to spend $20 on the world’s best cocktail, so you have to make sure that every drink is absolutely perfect. It’s not like I’ve let my guard down at other times but it’s made me aware that a hundred out of a hundred drinks has to be perfect and everyone has to have that experience.

DBHK: And your team has to live up to those standards too.

TP: I’ve always said that in my bar you get two world class bartenders for the price of one. The firsts year [Diageo] did the global title my business partner Aidy Ruiz competed for Australia and finished third globally. It wasn’t by much that he lost out. I’m obviously confident that he’s taking the reins while I’m here and in addition to that we have a great young bartender who’s really the up-and-coming kid in the Australian scene. My other business partner, Rob Sloane, is one of the best hosts in Australia as well as – and I hate to say it – one of the prettiest guys so we keep him on the floor. He talks to the punters; we make the drinks.

DBHK: You keep up to date with what’s happening globally. Would you say HK is a world-class bar city yet?

TP: I’m really surprised, HK has a real floating population and so many international people are coming through and influencing the scene. Whether they’re from London, Australia, even Japan, we’re seeing that explosion in HK and its really refreshing to see local bartenders taking things to the next level so that’s definitely something to be proud of and I definitely see it as an emerging force, not only in Asia-Pacific but globally.

DBHK: Where are you looking forward to drinking?

TP: Wyndham the 4th is one; it’s actually managed by a friend of mine from Australia, Tom. I’ve been given a list of bars as long as my arm to check out.

DBHK: Do you travel around Asia? What other cities here are up there?

TP: The big one is always Japan, but also Taiwan and Korea. I was in in Korea yesterday for a couple of days and it’s Taiwan next week. But it’s also countries like Vietnam, Thailand, India. China will be a powerhouse at some point, definitely. It’s amazing how people always talk about London and NY as having the best scenes but if you look at how cities in AP have always performed in the World Class finals, there’s a case to be made for us in the AP region being seen as the leaders.

DBHK: How do events like today’s World Class promo, and bars like Boujis, impact the city’s bar scene?

TP: [Boujis] brings London’s pulse here. I was lucky enough to work in London for a few years and I’m pretty close to that scene there. That level of service, level of quality, level of freshness of produce can only mean that it’ll lift the quality and the standard. Everyone will come up when reputable international bars set up shop in HK.

DBHK: And events like this?

TP: Definitely. It gives more exposure to the scene – of what other countries are doing and whether the exposure is through events like tonight or the exposure is through youtube videos, at least local bartenders or patrons can see what’s happening, the pace at which it’s developing – it’s not about Tom Cruise in Cocktail throwing bottles around.

DBHK: Congratulations on your recent opening. What motivated you to open a bar of your own?

TP: Thanks. Motivation is always that you want to make money for yourself. I think I’ve put multiple bar owners sons and daughters through higher education so it’d be good to put my own future kids through school with my own bar. Second to we wanted to do something that was us. If it was just about making money we would’ve opened a student bar and of course, for us, it is a business, not just a hobby but at the same time we’ve opted to open a 50-capacity bar with no signage and no advertising in a part of the city that isn’t renowned for its bar scene and it’s great – it’s going well. We do five cocktails which change every day – the cocktails are heavily influenced by Australia’s seasonal produce – this is nothing new – chefs have been waxing lyrical about local seasonal produce for years now and we’re just following that.

DBHK: Do you see a comparison between the two professions?

TP: I’m hesitant to – I think we are two different industries that are tied by the fact that we’re often under the same roof but I think you take as much inspiration from what chefs are doing as you can books, or movies, or popular culture. They work with the same palette that we do so I think you can take some cues from that but I’m hesitant to put us under the same banner.

DBHK: How would you describe your style?

TP: It’s taken 11 years to define. Most bartenders need to define their own style. I’m a pretty simple guy at heart and I like to let that shine through my drinks. I always have a classic as a base, generally and then I like to add something contemporary. That could be something that is in season for six weeks of the year like the nectarine, which is probably the most underrated fruit in the cocktail world, and one of the most delicious. You have bartenders using durian and all these weird and wacky fruits, star fruit and dragonfruit when no one is using nectarines in Australia is crazy to me. So definitely a classic as a base but with a contemporary spin, whether its how its being served or the produce we’re using in it. When I drink personally its again pretty simple, a single malt whisky or a glass of red wine.

DBHK: Are those also elements of your bar?

TP: We wanted to be a little bit more anti-back bar when it comes to our selection. So you’re not going to walk into Bulletin Place and see 150 gins or anything like that. And the venues that do that, I tip my hat to and I respect but what I want is for people to come in and say, ‘look how little they have but look what they’re doing with it.’ We’re trying to cover each base with every genre of spirit but normally no more than three of each category. The only exception is Scotch whisky. Our own personal collections are huge so we have an old apple crate with a dozen whiskies that we keep underneath the bar and when people ask about it we take it to the table and sell it organically rather than having it under a spotlight on the back bar.

DBHK: And finally… what inspires you?

TP: I’m contradicting what I said earlier but chefs do inspire me a lot, food does inspire me. What inspires me the most is probably other bartenders. I’m not the sort of guy to make my own bitters but when I go into a bar and the bartender says, ‘check this out, I just made this unicorn tear tincture; try that,’ and I see the application, that gets my creative juices flowing and a lot of my ideas are just ripped off from someone else’s but I like to think I put them in a bit more of a practical sense – I put them into a better use for what I’m trying to do.

Probably the biggest inspiration for me is drinking culture in other markets and it doesn’t have to be at the higher end bars. I was in a bar in Korea two nights ago and they take whiskey – whiskey without character – and they mix it with equally insipid beer and literally just bang the top of it and drink it down and it got me thinking, maybe we could put that into a better application – actually do a tasty cocktail with a tasty homemade soda – we’d take inspiration from that Korean BBQ. One drink, that one me Australian bartender of the year a couple of years ago was inspired by the fact that there was this bar I used to go to in East London and they used to do 80p vodka and cokes, and the only way that we could swallow 80p vodka and cokes all night was to chew on Airwaves menthol cherry gum. So I took this basic idea and ended up making this delicious Tanqueray 10 cocktail that was on the sour and bitter side, the same mixture of bitters and juices used in Tanq 10, orange, grapefruit and lime, Tanqueray 10 and Campari and what you had there was basically a drink that was sour and kind of bitter so you need something that was sweet so I made my own Tanqueray bubble gum, with lemon, lime and grapefruit that was sweet, so you’d be chewing this sweet, ginny bubblegum to balance the whole thing out, so you’ve got these judges sitting there chewing their gums off drinking the drink – all inspire from this shitty little bar in east London.

DBHK: Is that getting a little bit into the molecular side of things?

TP: Yeah, probably. Don’t tell anyone I did that [laughs].