For new drinks, Jax Thai starts at the farmers market

Rude Boy has been faithfully serving the Hobart community for some seven odd years — I think, perhaps, the delicious fried chicken and flavour forward cocktails might have something to do with its longevity.

As bartender Jax Thai has told us, some customers don’t even think the bar’s name is Rude Boy — they “think it’s Fried Chicken & Cocktails,” he says, on account of the large, promising sign out front.

Whatever you want to call the place, though, you’ll be having a good time when you’re here. And you should hit up Jax — he’s one of the top 25 bartenders in the Espolòn Afterlife To The Bone cocktail competition this year, after all.

Below, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, Jax talks about his drink, its inspiration, and walks us through his creative process.

Tell us about Rude Boy — what’s this place like?

Rude Boy is a rum bar slash cocktail bar slash fried chicken shops. Whatever you want it to be.

It’s pretty much a small little neighbourhood cocktail bar, in a little restaurant strip of Hobart, close to the city. We’re trying to keep it fun, keep it light.

How long has Rude Boy been around, how long have you been here?

Rude Boy is just over seven years old. So been around for a bit. It’s not a young venue anymore. I’ve been here for just a bit over a year. I’m also the youngest one here, I just realised.

Tell us about your drink?

So my drink is called Hundred Thousand Souls, basically I named it as a reference to the garnish which is a piece of churros coated in sprinkles — which we all know in Australia is called hundreds and thousands.

It’s the representations of the hundreds and thousands souls that move through the Mexican mercados, which is the Mexican wholesale market, every day, which is also what depicted on the Espolòn Represado label. What it stands for is essentially human connections — people interacting with each other, mingling with each other.

What’s the original there drink you’ve brought back to life for the Espolòn Afterlife competition?

So the forgotten classic is the Alcatraz. SoIt’s a bit of a modern classics. It originated in New Orleans, not too long ago in the 2000s.

I just want to like use it as a canvas, get inspiration out of it and then switch it up in my own way.

What’s in your take on the drink?

It has tequila in it obviously, Espolòn Reposado to be exact and the reason why I used the Reposado is for that basically roasted agave note which I replicate in a couple of ingredients in the drink, and just a little bit of like pineappley tropical notes as well as vanilla and spice.

And that’s basically the hero spirit of the drink. Essentially I replicated the chocolate bitters notes in terms of a Mexican cacao milk liqueur. The liqueur itself takes inspiration from a chocolate drink in Mexico called Cheparado.

We’ve got some sherry as well, so in the original recipe the sherry is oloroso, but in this particular one I offer amontillado. So adds a little bit of oak and adds a little bit of acidity as well, which I think really stretched the drink out and balanced it out a little bit. And for the spice, we’ve got some burnt guajillo chili and infuse that, very much like an earthy, sweeter note, that works real well with chocolate. And then I infuse that with some mezcal. Again, the mezcal element bring out the smokiness, a little bit of that savouriness as well, and that grassy agave note.

It’s garnished with a churros that I made with the leftover of the milk liqueur and coated in 90 percet dark chocolate and sprinkles.

It is fun — who doesn’t like sprinkles in your drinks? It’s colourful!

What’s your creative process when it comes to new drinks?

I’ll say it varies depending on the drink. Some drinks I’ll start with ingredients. We’ll start with the farmer’s market, normally. Just have a stroll, see what’s out there and build the drinks around that. With this drink in particular, actually, I started with the idea. So the idea of like, what do I want to make? Like what story do I want to tell?

And in terms of that, the first thing that draws my attention is the label of Espolòn. As you can see, just the mercado, with little individuals doing their own thing, the market store holders, commerce and art. It’s very cool.

It’s just fascinating how so many people can gather in one place and do so many things and at the same time function amazingly. It’s just, you know, making connections and it reminds me a little bit about what I like in Hobart as well, everyone knows everyone and everyone’s like, you know, sharing with each other and everyone’s known for their specific things and I think that’s something that very worth mentioning and championing.

Hundreds & Thousands Souls

30ml Espolon Reposado
15ml charred buttered corn and dark chocolate liqueur (champurrado inspired)
15ml Amontillado sherry
2.5ml Guajillo mezcal
15ml saline 2% (100ml filtered water + 2gr sea salt mix thoroughly)
Method: Stirred down over cubed ice, then single strain into porcelain mug 
Garnish: Hundreds & Thousands coated churro
Glassware: Porcelain mug

For the Charred buttered corn + dark chocolate liqueur:
200gr Espolon Blanco
200gr panela sugar 
50gr grated Mexican chocolate (Ibarra brand preferred)
10gr cacao nibs
200gr charred corn milk (50gr sweet corn grilled with unsalted butter, then blitzed into 200ml whole milk) 
1/8th of whole lemon deseeded
Mix all and leave in sealed jar for 5 days, filter afterwards with an oil/coffee filter.
Save leftover chocolate curd for churros batter. 

For the guajillo mezcal:
10gr burnt guajillo 
100ml Montelobos mezcal 
Steep for 2 hours, strain and bottle .

Hundreds & Thousands churro:
Step 1: Churro
150gr yellow corn flour 
250ml water
100gr unsalted butter
13gr white sugar
3 eggs
50gr leftover chocolate liqueur curd 
1/2tsp vanilla extract
1/4tsp salt
Vegetable oil for deep frying 

In a medium sized pot, preheat vegetable oil up to 182C for frying.
In a different pot, mix in water, butter, sugar and salt then bring to a boil on medium-high heat. 
Add corn flour, reduce heat to medium low, stir constantly with a spatula until smooth. 
Transfer to a mixing bowl and let cool down for 5 minutes, the batter should still be warm after. 
Add eggs, leftover chocolate liqueur curd and vanilla extract, blend thoroughly with an electric mixer until the mixture comes together and smooth.
Transfer mixture into piping bag fitted with rounded star tip and pipe mixture into preheated oil, cut end with scissors. 
Fry until golden brown, then transfer to paper towels to dry.

Step 2: Hundreds & Thousands coat
Bring water to a boil in a small pot, then place a metal bowl on top of the pot.
Melt 100gr of 90% cacao chocolate in the heated bowl, mix in 2gr of sea salt flakes.
Dip the fried churros in melted chocolate, then roll in some sprinkles (hundreds & thousands).  Let dry on a lifted tray.