That was wild!

I get to do some crazy stuff in my role as a booze news reporter, but last Thursday night was one of the wildest.

After receiving zero invitations to events over the last few months, four landed in my inbox … all for February 22. One was for World Margarita Day, one was for the opening of a bar called Pleasure Club, one was for a pinot noir dinner at a fancy restaurant in Double Bay and another was for the launch of a new bottle design.

I regretfully turned down the pinot noir dinner and fortunately the new bottle design organizers realised they’d chosen their date badly and moved it.

That left me with working my tail off in my day job, dashing over to Sydney Opera House to raise a glass to World Margarita Day with Cointreau, then throwing myself into a cab to Newtown to visit Pleasure Club.

Wow, what a night of contrasts!

It started like this …

And ended like this …

#notavisualmetaphor #actualevents

My first stop at the Sydney Opera House was a posh affair featuring a woman whose dress was made from actual Margaritas, plus there was a bell you could ring where hands popped out of holes in the curtain bearing Margaritas and a Margarita tower was poured.

My mag mate Rebecca was there and we had a delightful quick catch up before I jumped in a cab with my plus one, Ania, to Newtown to check out Odd Culture Group’s much-anticipated basement cocktail bar and live music haunt Pleasure Club.

The invitation promised a world of live music and performance, experimental concoctions and fever dream revelry. And the night did not disappoint.

Pleasure Club features plush booths, a pool table, a 1950s vinyl jukebox, a remarkable debut cocktail menu by Matt Whiley (Re, ex-Scout, et. al.) and amazing entertainment.

Let’s start with the cocktail menu, Nostalgia Machine, which aims to evoke visceral memories of growing up in Australia. Think drinks called ‘Passion Pop’, ‘Vegemite’, ‘Chicken Parm’, ‘Cherry Ripe’, ‘Mr Whippy’, ‘Cheese TV’ and ‘Sex Wax’.

We chose the Chicken Parm, which features vodka, comte cheese, bacon, bread crumb, tomato and chicken salt.

I know.

It was a little too savoury for me. I was wishing I’d ordered a Cherry Ripe with rum, cherry, dark chocolate, Davidson’s Plum and coconut.

As for the entertainment. we were treated to a bacchanalian performance by a band called Dane Blacklock & The Preacher’s Daughter.

Some friends might need to stop reading the post at this point because … this is a bit awkward … I later learned that the band describes itself as “Just your friendly neighbourhood satanic gospel blues rock n roll cabaret ten piece”.

That’s pretty out there, but they were very talented musicians who put on quite an incredible show, including a fantastic rendition of Rocky Horror’s Sweet Transvestite.

In a word, it was WILD.

Ania and I sat there sipping our strange cocktails and gawping at the energetic entertainment in wide-eyed fascination. We’d never seen anything quite like it before and we were dazzled.

We are also both on the other side of 55, so we headed home to our beds after the band’s first set, chattering in excitement on the train about what a fantastic night we’d had.

I might need to keep doing Drinks Digest for a bit longer …

Song of the day: Rocky Horror “Sweet transvestite”