‘Everyone deserves somewhere to drink,’ says Thomas Svensson

You’ll find Boston Shaker Bar about an hour and a half north of Brisbane in Mooloolaba, on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. And once there, you’ll find a talented team of bartenders putting out quality classic and classic-inspired cocktails.

And you’ll also find up and coming bartender Thomas Svensson behind the stick. Thomas, not coincidentally, also happens to be one of the top 25 bartenders in the Espolòn Afterlife To The Bone cocktail competitions with their drink, the Sempre Viva.

Below, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, Thomas talks about the drink, what it’s like tending bar at Boston Shaker Bar, and why making drinks accessible to everyone is so important.

What’s Boston Shaker Bar all about?
We are a classic style speakeasy bar. We are inspired by the prohibition era of cocktails, New York-inspired. Our whole menu covers speakeasy drinks, And we try to make it easier for people to understand the classic style of cocktails. A lot of them can be a bit unapproachable. So we try to make it really easy for people who don’t really know much about cocktails.

Okay, tell us about your drink?

The drink is called Sempre Viva, which means always alive. And it was inspired by the movie Death Becomes Her, which is a witchy film about two characters who buy a youth potion to stay alive forever. I thought that concept was fascinating in general.

I based my drink off the Pink Squirrel cocktail, which is like a creamy, delicious dessert. And I tried to make it into a more approachable drink using vegan alternatives and trying to take all the cream out, and use it in different ways. The concept though was inspired by a scene in which the characters dip their finger into blood and that’s how they stay alive forever.

I wanted to like make something that was whimsical and fun and exciting and that’s why I chose the tequila Espolòn Blanco. It’s youthful and I wanted to sort of celebrate what that meant.

When you look into Death Becomes Her, when you look into the film, there are so many queer innuendos as well. And a lot of the time in our lives, we are reawakening ourselves as well. So I thought that was really special and something that I wanted to pay tribute to because even though it’s fun and magical, it was a metaphor as well — which is the most beautiful thing.

Where do you get your creative ideas from?

A lot of the time I was initially inspired by reawakening queer stories. What I really wanted to do was find queer stories, queer voices, what we grew up with and what we weren’t allowed to express when we were younger and I wanted to heighten that — cocktails was a language that I could use to celebrate, to highlight, to champion our lives and lived experiences. So that is the core of every single drink that I do.

It’s the thing that I go back to if I’m ever uninspired or if I can’t find something that speaks to me.

Tell us about the Pink Squirrel cocktail — why’d you choose that?

I think it’s delicious. I relate it to the like cursed era of cocktails — like the Grasshopper and Sex On The Beach. It’s definitely more of a creamy drink. It uses apricot, uses cherry, it uses a creme de noyau, which is like an apricot creamy liqueur.

The liqueur uses apricot, cherry, all those flavours I’ve translated into Sempre Viva as well. So instead of cherry, I relied on fresh strawberries, local strawberries for winter. And I really relied on almonds instead of apricot to sort of come through into a different sort of drink.

The pink squirrel uses white chocolate, cream. It’s very delicious. But I actually made that drink when I was learning cocktails as well. It was one of the first ones I made here with my friends. And I actually loved it. Like I personally am a stan of the Pink Squirrel. I actually love it. But for the comp, I wanted to make something really approachable and something that everyone can enjoy.

So I decided to use almond milk and almonds and white chocolate essences to sort of make it a more vegan alternative experience everyone can enjoy it.

I think one thing that I love is the colourfulness, the whimsical element of it, the theatre element of it. That’s fun. And I think we need to keep light, fruity, fun drinks alive, as much as we can. Those drinks are actually fun.

You talked about making the drink approachable for everyone — why is that important to you?

I think everyone deserves to have somewhere to drink, to have somewhere to go. When it comes to vegan alternatives, I think it’s just important to think about everybody, try to reach everybody. We even do that here for our foams on our cocktails. We just use Wonder Foam. We don’t use any egg white in our sours. So I think it’s just important to make it easier for everyone to drink.

How long have you been bartending?

I’ve been bartending for just over two years now. I started in hotels and this is my first bartending job that I consider a classic style, working in speakeasy bars. So I would say two years I’ve been a bartender and through that time I’ve tried to make as many connections as I can through social media, through having a voice and showing people who you are. I’m just so happy to keep learning and figuring out what it means to be a bartender in this space as well.

What is it about Boston Shaker Bar that you draws you to it?

I’ve always said that Boston Shaker Bar is a little adaptable because at time we have a lot of people who just want to experience classic cocktails in a quiet speakeasy bar with dim lights and music, just something that’s comfy and something that they can just relax and ease into. And sometimes we try to host events and other things and bring in the bright lights and bring in disco and have that younger crowd experience with music and that energy. So I’ve always said that we’re adaptable, but I think as a bar on the Sunshine Coast you have to. I think that’s what we represent and that’s what we do.

Sempre Viva

30ml Espolòn Blanco
60ml Strawberry & Apricot Cordial
Topped with White Chocolate Almond Foam
Garnish with drops of Amarena cherry and Agave Blood

For the Strawberry Apricot Cordial:
Using a stovetop and saucepan, place the ingredients into a saucepan:
70g Freshly cut strawberries
200g White Sugar
200ml Water
4g Citric Acid

Turn on the heat on ‘low to medium’ and gently stir until sugar and citric acid has dissolved. During this process, carefully press against the strawberries into the sugar. Once sugar has completely dissolved, turn off the heat and place the saucepan away from the stovetop. After the mixture has cooled down, add these ingredients:
Apricot Halves (in syrup) — 100ml of just the syrup.
100ml Apricot Nectar
10ml Fino Sherry

Stir all ingredients together. Carefully double strain the strawberries and solids out with a cheesecloth or Chux and bottle. Store in the fridge for use for up to 1 week.

For the White Chocolate Almond Foam:
In a cream whipper, add the following ingredients:
1/2 tsp Almond extract
1 tsp Vanilla extract
30ml White Creme De Cacao
70ml White Chocolate syrup
100ml Almond Milk
60ml Aquafaba
1 tsp Xanthan Gum

Charge the cream whipper once using an iSi pro cream charger and shake for 30 seconds. Store in the fridge for 1 hour before use. The foam will last up to 1 week.

For the Amarena Cherry and Agave Blood:
On a small plate, combine equal parts agave syrup (Whole Earth Blue Agave Sweetener Classic) to amerena cherry (Brover) syrup. For this serve, prepare 50ml of both agave syrup and amerena cherry is enough for plenty of serves. Make sure to distribute this carefully each serve so that no syrup is wasted.