‘I consider myself a creative person,’ says Kitty Gardner of Caretaker’s Cottage

By now, you’re probably reasonably familiar with Caretaker’s Cottage. It’s the small Melbourne bar — they call it a pub — that has had big results on the global stage, landing at number 23 last year and taking out the top spot on the Boothby Best Bars VIC awards the same year.

The drinks are good here, of course, but that’s because they’ve got some pretty great talent behind the stick — people like Kitty Gardner, who also — not coincidentally — happens to be one of the top 25 bartenders in the Espolòn Afterlife To The Bone cocktail competition.

Below, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, Kitty tells us about her drink, about the creative process at Caretaker’s Cottage, and where she gets her ideas from.

Would you like to introduce yourself and tell me where you are?

My name’s Kitty Gardner and we are in Caretaker’s Cottage in Melbourne.

Tell us about your drink. What’s it called?

It is called Rebel Yell. So it’s a twist on a drink called the Swan Cocktail. A Swan Cocktail is gin, dry vermouth, orgeat, lime, absinthe and cocktail bitters served up.

I picked that one because I thought, how many other people are going to pick this drink?

It comes from a 1914 cocktail book called Drinks by Jack Straub — Jack Attack.

What’s in your version of the drink?

My version, so I’ve infused the Espolòn Blanco tequila with some ripe pineapples through a process called souspression. Swapped out the dry vermouth for bianco vermouth using fresh lime, some pandan agave orgeat syrup, and then I made a anise myrtle tincture so, like a native version of an absinthe that we’ve made in-house.

I was trying to play off a lot of the tropical flavours that you can find in Espolòn blanco. We can have this drink all year round and pretend, you know, we’re in some tropical Mexican all-inclusive resort and kick back.

Where do you get your ideas from?

Normally when we’re making drinks here we try and start the process by finding two flavour combinations we want to work with.

Now that I’m a parent, I don’t get to go out and experience as many drinks at bars anymore. So I try and find inspiration where I can, whether that’s at a coffee shop or a bakery. And Instagram always, you know — if you can’t get to the bar, you can get to their page.

Tell us about Caretaker’s Cottage and what makes this place so special. What do you like about it?

I think how I explain it to people is the three owners, Matt, Rob and Ryan, they’ve got such a wealth of knowledge when it comes to working in hospitality. I think whatever they were going to do was going to be great. And then they’ve just landed on this amazing and unique space that they’ve really made their own.

You know, when the place gets full — doesn’t take long to do that because it’s tiny — but it just feels like you’re in someone’s home. This is a warm welcoming space and things are changing all the time so when you come in, if you’re interested in beers there’s always new beers to try — nothing’s a second thought.

Do you ever get on the turntables behind the bar yourself?

No. No, I’ll leave that to the pros.

What is it about bartending that you find rewarding?

I think in the beginning, my first job was as a bussy and a pretty crappy club. And I was just like, my god, this is amazing. I’d been working in retail after I finished school and I was just like, this is great. I’m part of the party.

But as the years went on, I wanted to travel and I did that and bartending was a great job to have, and to be able to go wherever you want.

I consider myself a creative person — this is a great place to be if you can, it’s a creative outlet working and making new drinks.

Rebel Yell

45ml pineapple Espolon Blanco (souspression technique)
10ml cinzano bianco vermouth
15ml lime juice 
10ml pandan orgeat syrup
1 bsp aniseed mytle tinture
2 dash fig leaf aussie bitters

Place all ingreadients in shaker. shake, and fine strain into small stemless glass. Garnish with calendula flowers and serve on papel picado coaster.