Maybe Sammy’s once-a-year cocktail list unveiling takes place this week, with the new menu drawing inspiration from 12 defining moments in film and television.
The award-winning cocktail bar at The Rocks intentionally unveils just the one cocktail menu a year, as part of a tradition that reflects the bar’s philosophy: to create not just technically brilliant cocktails, but experiences that linger.
This year’s menu, Showtime, has been designed through months of research, recipe testing and design. Each cocktail is elevated through the likes of custom glassware and playful garnishes, which promises a journey of immersive storytelling and theatrical flourishes that are each a “complete production”.
Maybe Group Director of Bars Paolo Maffietti, who led the development of Showtime, says this is about more than just drinks.
“It’s about creating an experience that blurs the line between cinema and the bar,” says Maffietti. “We put months into research and development, concepting, and design, but also into the theatre of how we present each cocktail. It’s playful, it’s immersive, and it’s something we want people to remember long after the last sip.”
Each cocktail will be paired with its own cinematic-style trailer which has been written, directed and performed by Maybe Sammy’s team.
Shot across several months in locations around Sydney, such as a set echoing The Shining, the trailers capture the tongue-in-cheek theatrics that Maybe Sammy is known for. Guests will be able to view this at Maybe Sammy’s via QR code.
The menu includes:
- Crocodile Dundee: A highball fizzing with Glenfiddich 14, lemon myrtle, mango soda, coconut, and macadamia. A nod to the Australian outback, this cocktail leans on native flavours and is finished with a gelatin leaf studded with freeze-dried ants.
- Peaky Blinders: A whiskey-apple highball that looks calm on the surface, with jasmine, apple mead, and citrus lifted by green tea soda. Beneath, Benriach 10 and amontillado sherry add a dry, dangerous backbone. It’s a nod to Tommy Shelby’s deceptively calm “no fighting” scene.
- David Attenborough martini series: Three martinis paying tribute to Attenborough’s Seven Worlds, One Planet each channelling “the flavour of a landscape”. These include “ocean” with samphire and bitters; “forest” with mushroom distillate and cacao butter; and “desert” with camel milk and bright orange bitters.
- The Grand Budapest Hotel: A gimlet with Ford’s gin, pandan, watermelon, pink ginger, coconut water, and coffee wash. Served in custom glassware shaped like the lobby boy’s hat.
- Willy Wonka: A twist on the classic 20th Century cocktail, blending vodka, hazelnut, cacao, and amarena cherry with a bursting bubble garnish.
- The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: A Paloma layered with tequila, elderflower, shio koji, burnt sugar, smoky rooibos soda, and grapefruit granita.
Other screen homages include: The Shining (A whiskey sour), The Great Gatsby (spritz), Goodfellas (Bloody Maria), Pirates of the Caribbean (tiki-leaning Mai Tai), The Big Lebowski (White Russian), and Ocean’s 11 (tequila picante).
Since opening in January 2019, Maybe Sammy has been voted Best Bar in Australasia five years running by The World’s 50 Best Bars, was the inaugural winner of their Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award in 2020, and claimed the number spot on the Top 500 Bars list in 2023.
Showtime will be available from Wednesday 17 September.
Photography by Mario Francisco.
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