It is all about the guest — and their happy faces — for Quinn Zuo

Quinn Zuo bartends at Apollonia, in the Sydney CBD. It’s here at Apollonia that Quinn gets to enjoy a passion for the job — he gets a kick out of it when people enjoy his drinks.

“Seeing the people’s happy faces inspired me to get more creativity into the drinks,” he says.

That’s also why Quinn is one of the top 25 bartenders in the Espolòn Afterlife To The Bone cocktail competition, thanks to his drink, Daemon.

Below, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, Quinn talks about his Games of Thrones-inspired drink, and what he loves about working the bar.

Tell us about the name of your drink and what’s the big idea behind this drink.

The name of my drink is called Daemon. I am big fan of Game of Thrones, I love a lot of the fighting scenes.

I make a lot of classic cocktails, especially the Bloody Mary and Caesar recently.

What are the ingredients in your drink?

We have Espolòn Reposado tequila, and we’ve got tomato, capsicum, also anchovy and some of the apple shrub in there as well.

How does that all come together?

The inspiration is the Caesar. So it’s quite similar in flavour as the Caesar. And I just recognised that the tomato and capsicum work well, because it’s same category of food. And the capsicum can be a little bit spicy, and the tomato sweet and sour.

Why do you do what you do?

So I used to sit in office, but I feel like something I’m really passionate about is facing the guests, providing the product to the guests directly and just seeing the happy faces of the guests after drinking the beverage and eating the food. And seeing the people’s happy faces inspired me to get more creativity into the drinks and all that. So I think that’s the reason I ended up doing it every single day.

Daemon

50ml Espolon Reposado
30ml Dark Roasted Capsicum and Tomato Paste
15ml Pickled Apple reduction Shrub
2 dashes Anchovy Tincture

Roll all ingredients in a shaking tin with ice.

For the Anchovy tincture:
Equal parts of pickle anchovy and overproof Rum, blend until all the ingredients combined. Set for 2 hours and freeze in the freezer until alcohol separate. Fine strain and get the anchovy tincture.

For the Dark Roasted Capsicum and Tomato Paste:
prepare 3:1 tomato to red capsicum. Roast capsicum with olive oil and salt and pepper until skin get darker and burned, and take the skin off, keep the segments. Boil the tomato until skin off. Weigh all the boiled tomato and capsicum segment and add 1:10 red wine (full body wine) and 1:50 black pepper. Blend until all the ingredients combine to a paste.

For the Baby Apple Reduction Shrub:
Take out the whole can of apple and juice in the pan, put on medium heat and reduce 1/3 juice.b Blend all the ingredients and fine strain with filter paper. Way the juice and add 1:5 sugar, add 1:15 champagne vinegar.