At Roxie’s, you’ll get summer garden vibes (and flavour-forward cocktails) — just not for much longer

The Hendrick’s Curious Gin Trail is back at Adelaide Fringe right now, with 10 great bars to visit showing just how good the cocktail scene is in Adelaide right now.

Speak to most of the bartenders working at bars on this year’s Curious Gin Trail, and ask them where to go for a drink, and you’ll get a regular answer: Roxie’s.

Roxie’s is the cocktail garden Adelaide had to have, a temporary popup that just kept on keeping on. But they won’t have it much longer; Roxie’s is set to close for good this May.

But that means that there’s still time to visit this staple of Adelaide’s bar scene, and below, Hendrick’s ambassador James MacRae — you may know him as wee James — talks to general manager Timothy Reid about what to expect.

So we are here at the fabulous Roxies, one of the most stunning venues in my opinion, in Adelaide. Now, please introduce yourself.

My name is Timothy Reid, so I’m the general manager of the west side of the Crown & Anchor hotel complex, which Roxies and Chateau Apollo make up part of. We’re a pretty large venue here. We’ve got all sorts of different strings to our bow. And Roxies is probably the jewel of our summer portfolio.

And what was this space originally? It’s such a unique place.

Well, it’s a long story. I don’t know if your camera’s got enough batteries. But basically, the history is it used to be a car park — and then there was a resurgence in Adelaide with the introduction of the small bar license. So this site was activated in a few different pop ups. Little Miss Mexico being one of them, Crab Shack and a few others of differing names and offerings. It’s always been about being outside and having a great time. And I think over the years, we discovered that relaunching a business every year is harder than just maintaining what you’re doing well.

Obviously being quite close to the Fringe hub, what is the Fringe period like for you each year?

Yeah, it’s an interesting one. It definitely brings a lot of people to the city. The East End is sort of where that all happens generally. We’ve got lot of Fringe shows in Chateau Apollo next door. And then from there, we just get a lot more people through the door. The restaurant’s busy, the pub’s flat out, especially late night after everyone gets their fix down the East End. And Roxies is kind of that place to go prior to and after your show.

So I believe Max is going to whip up a couple of cocktails for us in a minute. But we’ve got two fabulous expressions of Hendrick’s here today. Starting off with Grand Cabaret, the freshest of the Hendrick’s. Tell us a little bit about the Flower Patch Kid.

We’ve got a pretty varying cocktail portfolio here and it is the kind of the thing Roxies is known for. We do a lot of cocktails and we make them all fresh to go.

Now, Hendrick’s having a few other things to play with has been lots of fun. And full disclosure, I didn’t make these cocktails — I’ve got lots of skills and mixology might not be considered one of them. So [our bartender] Max can probably tell you a bit more about them. But Flower Patch Kids, it’s just that mixture of sweet and sour. It’s a real sort of fun summer cocktail that a lot of people have been getting behind.

And we’ve heard rumours of potentially a wee Fora Adora Negroni take, is that true?

It is, yeah. We love a Negroni. I think anyone in hospitality absolutely loves a Negroni. We thought we’d try something a bit lighter and fresher. It’s just a refreshing take on the classic Negroni. So we bring those sweet and fruity flavours through and it makes it a little more approachable.

Flower Patch Kid

• 30ml Hendrick’s Grand Cabaret
• 15ml ginger liqueur
• 20ml lemon juice
• 20ml housemate strawberry syrup
• 5ml rose essence
• Dash of lavender bitters
• 4 drops Wonderfoam

Rosy Negroni

• 30ml Hendrick’s Flora Adora
• 30ml Aperol
• 30ml Unico Rosa
• 10ml rose syrup
• Peach bitters