The creation process is ‘a collective effort’ says Callum McKay

Callum McKay is a bartender at Bar Brutus in Brisbane, which usually focuses squarely on amaro — the bitter sweet stuff one has before and after dinner. But they can also tend to your tequila needs, should you so desire — and you should, given that Callum is one of the top 25 bartenders in the Espolòn Afterlife To The Bone cocktail competition.

You can get taste his entry into the competition, the Maria Pickford, at Bar Brutus throughout August. And, if his drink impresses the judges, you might even see him getting to Sydney for the national final during Sydney Bar Week next month.

Below, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, Callum tells us about his drink, about Bar Brutus, and how he developed this recipe.

What do you do here at Bar Brutus?
I’m a bartender, one of four, and we all work together on an equal playing field and we just do everything, host, make drinks, run, all of it.

What’s this place about? What makes it different?

So the thing that makes Bar Brutus different would be that it is an amaro-focused bar; so purely Italian spirits and we are located very close to multiple restaurants. We get a big rush before dinner and after dinner and we provide everything in between. People want bespoke cocktails with amaro, we do that. People want classics, anything.

And Espolòn tequila is our main tequila spirit for the whole bar. We love it.

Tell us about your drink?

My drink is called the Maria Pickford and the idea behind that is that the Mary Pickford was a classic cocktail, [my drink is] based off this recipe. And the same as with a Bloody Mary, when you add tequila you change it to Bloody Maria, so this is my version of the Mary Pickford, still paying homage to her last name of course, keeping the legacy going and using Espolòn.

Tell us about the original Mary Pickford cocktail, what the ingredients are and what you’ve changed.

So the ingredients for the Mary Pickford are rum, pineapple, maraschino and grenadine.

So those ingredients together create like a lovely, sort of dry and sweet cocktail, Daiquiri-style. But for my ingredients, I’ve changed the rum to tequila. So I’m using Espolòn tequila for that. The pineapple, I’m using tepache, which is like a fermented pineapple drink. And the maraschino I’m changing to a cherry wine.

How do you make the cherry wine?

The cherry wine is any sort of white wine bottle infused with cherries. And the last ingredient is grenadine, but I’ve changed that to a pomegranate agave syrup just to complement the tequila used.

Where do you usually get your ideas for a drink?

It’s funny, I actually had a conversation about this, because this is my first competition I’m doing and I said, how am I supposed to come up with all these ideas and ingredients and things? It’s a collective effort, it’s a team effort to create a creative inspiration for something.

So working in a small team like this, I’ve got great minds with me.I’m just bouncing ideas constantly whilst also staying true to the classic cocktail. So that’s how I designed this cocktail.

What is it about that cocktail creation process you like?

The actual process of coming up with crazy ideas in my mind and then putting it in front of you as a real physical object and seeing how it tastes, that is exciting for me.

Why do you do what you do?

I think bartending is the best job in the world simply because you meet new people every day and you meet people from all other walks of life and you get to have a really intimate conversation as long as you put in the effort. Everyone wants to tell you their story and that’s the best thing about bartending, you get to listen to every customer that comes in.

Maria Pickford recipe

45ml Espolòn Reposado Tequila
40ml Citric Acid Adjusted Tepache
15ml Housemade Maraschino
12.5ml Salted Pomegranate Agave

For the Citric Acid Adjusted Tepache:
Combine 150g brown sugar, 1 Cinnamon stick, 1 Birds eye chilli, 1 clove ginger, 1 whole pineapple (diced) and 4L of water into a jar. Seal with a rubber band and chux for 48hrs, store in a dry controlled room temperature environment. After 48hrs strain and add 15g of Citric Acid per 1L of yield.

For the Housemade Maraschino:
Add 250g of Cherries, 50g of Apricot and 250ml of white wine into a vacuum bag aswell as 50g of sugar. Vaccuum seal and infuse for 24hrs in the fridge and strain off once concluded.

For the Salted Pomegranate Agave:
Freeze 50g of Pomegranate Arils and soak into 100ml of Agave syrup to allow the juice to bleedout overnight in the fridge. Strain off once the Agave has turned red and smells juicy. Add 1 bar spoon of salt to the mixture to complete. 

For the garnish:
Grill a pineapple slice and place the piece in a vessel with 10ml of white vinegar and 50ml of Pomegranate molasses.  Add maraschino Cherries into a vessel with 25ml Espolon Reposado and 100ml of tepache.