Steve McDermott: Inside the Career

About This Episode

Steve McDermott's career reads like a hospitality fairy tale -- from a country school in Queensland to the world's most famous cocktail bar, 50 St. James in London, under the legendary Salvatore Calabrese. In this episode, Steve shares how persistence, a chance encounter with a South African billionaire, and a breakfast martini changed the trajectory of his entire career.

Now back in Australia, Steve is an Executive at the International Spirits Academy (ISA), building the first diploma-level spirits certification -- and his stories from behind the stick are nothing short of gold.

Key Topics

• Leaving school with his parents' blessing and landing at a five-star Hyatt hotel
• The moment he saw bartenders having fun and decided "I want to do that"
• The legendary story of how he talked his way into Salvatore's 50 St. James
• Winning London Bartender of the Year as contestant #13 -- working one day a week
• Five years at Salvatore's, learning from the greats: Dale DeGroff, Gary Regan, Peter Dorelli
• Opening a gastro pub in Brisbane and winning Australian Publican of the Year
• The Duke of Clarence -- building Sydney's most authentic English pub
• Rapid fire: Gin vs everything, and crushed ice as the ultimate bar luxury
• The International Spirits Academy -- filling the certification gap in spirits

Full Transcript

Getting Into Hospitality

Ronan: How did you get into hospitality? Like I'm sure it's like the rest of us -- you just got no idea what you're going to do with your life, so you start getting into bars.

Steve: Yeah, pretty much. Mine was a bit different. I kind of got my parents' blessing to leave school and go do something else because I wasn't doing great there. I have an older cousin who was in hospitality, in restaurants, and he was travelling, meeting cool people, doing all this sort of stuff -- and that just seemed really fun to me.

At school, all the things I'd sort of done better at were more creative or with my hands. I was doing home economics and stuff, cooking and all those sorts of things. I really enjoyed it. There was a trainee program that Hyatt Hotels put out and I just applied for it. I thought, "That's cool -- get a traineeship, get paid, get out of school, get a full-time job." The way my high school was going, I probably didn't want to wait till everyone else got out of school to be competing with them to get stuff. So I put my hand up and got a job working in a five-star hotel, coming from being in a little country school somewhere.

Ronan: You grew up in a small country town in Queensland, right?

Steve: I did. And weirdly enough, the podcaster who I was actually thinking I'm going to put you in contact with -- Sean S, who does the Post Shift podcast -- he and I are from the same school. He was the year above me. He had quite a similar career but more Canada, and I went to the UK. Our entire school assembly was on one basketball court -- a couple hundred students. So yeah, it was just random. I ended up catching up with him years later just being like, "Do you remember me?" Both pretty good bartenders at the time. Must be something in the water.

The Five-Star Hotel Years

Ronan: So that five-star hotel was in Brisbane, or was it more city?

Steve: It was the Hyatt Regency in Coolum, which ended up getting bought by Clive Palmer. I don't remember -- he turned it into a crazy thing with fake dinosaurs on the golf course or something.

But look, it was really good. Even though it was there, we had head chefs from Europe, so they had really good classic training. Some were just locals but others had done what I wanted to do -- to travel around. It was very F&B. I got to do all sorts of things: room service for a little while, being a food runner. That was great for me because I was standing there and had some really great chefs who were just teaching me stuff. Putting food up, I'd be like "What the hell is that?" Definitely wasn't like now where people have such a higher knowledge of food. They'd be using words, throwing in a French or German accent -- and I'd be mispronouncing things at the table and the customer would correct me.

I was doing that, working on the restaurant, and it was going well. But I used to see the guys in the bar having an absolute blast. I was like, "That looks so much more fun than what I'm doing." I was waiting tables -- a bit more stiff, people a bit more uptight in the restaurant. Then you'd look out at the bar and those guys are shaking drinks, looking cool, lighting people's cigarettes over the bar, flirting with girls, laughing, doing shots. I was like, "Maybe I want to be involved in that." So I started gravitating towards that, asking if I could learn a drink or two here and there. Forced my way in.

The 50 St. James Story

Ronan: Speaking of forcing your way in -- Salvatore at 50. You didn't just walk in and get the job off the bat, did you? What's the backstory to how you landed yourself there?

Steve: There's quite a story. I'd worked in some cool places in London -- Ian Schrager Hotels. Ian Schrager was one of the guys that opened Studio 54, so this guy knew how to throw a party. They're all designed by Philippe Starck. Lots of rich people, TV celebs, movie stars. I served so many celebs there, it was so cool. There were some great bartenders I got to learn under, a couple I'm still in contact with today.

I bounced around a few places, ended up in a restaurant with this dodgy guy who didn't pay any of his bills. People were protesting up the street to get him to pay his suppliers. I didn't stay there.

I was looking for something and had my friend Miquel Pon -- now bar manager at The Lanes, which is where Salvatore was once upon a time. I was at his place and 50 St. James had just opened up. He said, "Why don't you go and get a job there?" I was like, "Do you think they're ever going to hire me there? You're an idiot. That's never going to happen."

But I sat with that idea for a bit. One of the first books I ever bought was one of Salvatore's books -- which was hilarious because I was memorising drinks that no one ever asked me for. At the time, working in Australia, no one ever wanted a Negroni or a Manhattan. People would come to the bar saying "Hey, make me a drink" and I'd be like "Sure, try this." They'd be like "What the hell is that?" The culture just wasn't there. Give me a Pina Colada.

So I got my resume together, put my suit on, went down to 50 -- and I couldn't get in. It's a private members club. I was like "Can I just drop this off?" And they were like "No" -- in the nicest, politest way.

But really lucky for me, one of the guys working security had worked security at another venue I'd worked at. So I was like, "Hey, can you pass this on to him for me?" Which he did.

I had a Saturday night off. I was in a suit. I'd never been to The Library Bar, which was Salvatore's previous bar at The Lanesborough Hotel. So I went there -- thought I'd do the tour, have a Breakfast Martini at The Lanesborough. I sat at the bar, got chatting to one of the bartenders I knew, told them what had happened. They found it kind of funny -- I think they also found it funny because they're all Italian and I'm a blue-eyed Australian trying to get a job at Salvatore's.

As luck would have it, the guy sat next to me -- I didn't know at the time -- was one of the wealthiest men from South Africa. His name's Doain. He owns the Saxon Hotel, a super luxurious hotel in South Africa. The opening party, Nelson Mandela went there. High roller.

I got chatting and said I wanted to go to 50. He said, "Oh, I'm a member there. I'm going there next. Do you want to come? I'm allowed to sign in a guest." I was like, "Yeah, absolutely."

I thought we were going to get a taxi. We went downstairs and his vintage Bentley was waiting with his driver. I was like, "I don't think we're on the same pay level, me and this guy." Hopped in, went over. This time going to 50, very different experience -- the car, people opening the doors for us, the doors flung open like "Right this way, sir." Mr. Stain was pretty important, which was registering a little bit more as we went.

We walked into the bar and Salvatore clocks us straight away. I knew this must be an important person because Salvatore stopped what he was doing, came straight over -- "Oh, Mr. Stain, how are you?" Then he went to say hi to me and the guy's like, "Oh, this is my friend Steve. We just met at the bar."

I realised this was an important person I was with. I thought, "You've got to play your best hand." So I put Salvatore on the spot in front of this guy. I said, "Hi Salvatore, I'm Steve. I believe you got my resume that was just given to you." He was like, "Yeah." I was like, "I'd really love to work here." I could just see in his face -- he was like, "You little..." But he was like, "Okay, yeah, let's talk about it."

He came and joined us. Didn't really talk to me -- talked to Mr. Stain. From there, I just bugged him on the phone. Kept calling. "Can I speak to Salvatore?" For some reason they just let me do that. He was like, "No, we haven't got anything. We haven't got anything. We haven't got anything." Then one day he said, "Hang on, hold on a second" -- must have spoken to someone else -- "I've got one day a week. But you're not going to be working on the bar. It's opening -- not the evening." I was like, "Sure, I'll take it." Then I negotiated an extra day a week. I said, "Look, I'd like to come in and do prep and do a full clean on the bar." I was scrubbing the place from top to bottom, which he loved. The place was gleaming. You never saw a fruit fly in that place.

Bartender of the Year -- Contestant #13

Steve: At the time, the entire bar team was Italian. They used to speak to each other in Italian. I was there speaking English to the customers, and there was a bit of distance between us.

The guys were doing competitions and things, but I wasn't really finding out about them -- they were just sharing them amongst themselves. So I thought I wanted to take part. There was Theme Magazine, which was the bar magazine at the time, and they had a Bartender of the Year competition. I had met the editor a few times and I just asked, "Hey, any chance I can enter the London Heat?" He was like, "We've already got all the spaces." I just told him, "Look, I'm just trying to impress the boss a little bit. Would you mind letting me?" He said, "Alright, but you're going to be contestant 13 -- that's bad luck." I said, "I'll take it. I don't care."

I won. I won. I was part-time, one day a week, cleaning a bar -- and then I had this title of London Bartender of the Year. I was full-time on the bar the next day. It was awesome.

There was another guy there who was umming and ahhing about whether he still wanted to work there -- I kind of helped him make that decision. They made me head bartender, then I stayed five years and became assistant manager there. I still talk to Salvatore today. He was here recently -- we caught up, went for lunch, did all the touristy things, photos at Opera Bar and the bridge, Icebergs, the whole tour. The usual thing -- no one spoke English for the first 30 minutes. A lot of the staff there are Italian as well. It's funny.

Opportunities That Followed

Ronan: That's actually wild. You went from not getting let in to being walked in with a Bentley. If a drink can change the trajectory of your career, that Breakfast Martini definitely did. And winning Bartender of the Year, it opened up opportunities within the venue. Did it open up even more opportunities outside the venue, just in the scene?

Steve: A little bit. It was a different era in bartending. I did this and I didn't have a Facebook page -- this was a long time ago, Facebook had only just started. I wasn't really interested in it. Everything I did competition-wise was before I had any social media.

You get known amongst other bartenders -- people get to know you that way. The only publicity you get is probably in print, which probably happened so many times.

I got some cool jobs on the side -- get asked to do events. I did one at Coutts Bank on the Strand in the middle of London, owned by the royal family. Some of the royal family just showed up. They don't tell you -- they're like "Do you want to come along?" I thought it was just going to be some rich person wanting a martini. I was stood there staring at stuff, thinking "This is boring, but it paid really well." Then you hear the trumpets with the flags on -- like that literally happens. Mad stuff like that.

I got a lot of travel. Back in the day, brands used to have -- you win something, you're getting flown here, there, and everywhere. I went around Kentucky with Buffalo Trace, hung out with people from Maker's Mark. They really showed us a good time. Got to sit in Colonel Blanton's office, went through his desk. Pretty cool.

But more than that -- just the people you get to meet. I got to see Peter Dorelli on the regular. I got to see Dale DeGroff every time he was in town, hang out at the bar and just talk. Meeting Gary Regan and becoming mates with him. It's funny hearing people now talk about those people and the impact they had -- The Joy of Mixology, Gary's way of categorising drinks, how it revolutionised the way of memorising classic cocktails. I still got text messages from my phone from him, which is fun. I was lucky to be in the room with people on many occasions. I'm very thankful for that.

Rapid Fire: Base Spirits

Ronan: Alright, rapid fire. You've got to drink one of these for the rest of your life... Tequila or bourbon?

Steve: Tequila.

Ronan: Tequila or gin?

Steve: Gin. Or life without a martini?

Ronan: That's pretty much what I thought. Gin or rum?

Steve: Gin.

Ronan: Gin or scotch?

Steve: I think I'm going to go gin.

Ronan: Gin or cognac?

Steve: That's a really tough one. Definitely from working for Salvatore, you got a good appreciation for cognac. Still going to go gin.

Ronan: Gin or Irish whiskey?

Steve: This is cruel. I'll stick with gin.

Ronan: Gin or mezcal?

Steve: Gin. Gin wins for me. I guess the versatility of it -- within it you've got a lot of different flavour profiles.

Stepping Into Distilling

Ronan: Stepping into distilling must have opened up a whole another dimension of how you use and appreciate these spirits.

Steve: Absolutely. It lifts the curtain on certain things. Nothing against brands and education that's out there now, but on the whole we mostly get taught a very dumbed-down version of how distillation works. There's certainly things where I now just go, "Oh, that was just straight-up wrong -- we got taught this and that."

Distilling is an awesome job. There's a lot of WHS in there -- you learn a lot of workplace health and safety, because you're dealing with flammable compounds and things that have a heat source. It's good to know how to not blow things up.

I think it shows where bartending is coming. The guy I worked under to learn how to distil was Tim Stones. Tim was at Be At One back in the day -- home of the Porn Star Martini and the Nuclear Daiquiri. He got a job as global ambassador for Beefeater, then was learning how to distil under Desmond Payne -- Desmond Payne was head distiller at Beefeater and Plymouth. Back then, there was no direct line from bartender to distiller. It was just like, "How the hell did you get that gig? That's so cool."

Nowadays, you look at the amount of gin and whiskey out there where the people distilling it are ex-bartenders. They're coming at it from a standpoint of how things behave in the glass -- not just "Let's make the best thing for people to have a basic G&T with soda water." We've got Fever Tree now, all these boutique mixers. Bartenders have had a huge impact on distilling -- whether or not distilling's prepared to admit that. The guys at Never Never, you've got Tim Triggs there who's a cracking bartender, good personality -- not a bad cook as well, as we've seen on MasterChef.

The Gastro Pub Years

Ronan: I didn't realise you were running programs for Rockpool -- is that worth talking about?

Steve: I spent 10 months as group bars manager for Hunt Street Hospitality. To be honest, there were a lot of gatekeepers there. I was hired by someone who wanted to push bars in that company more, and the other 90% didn't want to know about it. It is what it is -- they didn't want to change. We'll move on.

The Duke of Clarence

Ronan: One thing we can't glance over -- the Duke of Clarence. That little gold mine.

Steve: Yeah, still probably my favourite venue in Sydney. Which is why, when you were saying spirits before -- when you touched on Irish whiskey, I was like, "Not having a Guinness and a shot of whiskey at the Duke!"

It was a good one for me as well -- I'd just moved from Brisbane to Sydney after I had my own venture with a couple other people. It went great to start with, and then it didn't go great. We ended up closing up shop.

Ronan: How long were you open for?

Steve: Just over three years. Three and a half years.

We opened a gastro pub, which now seems like a pretty standard thing, but they just weren't around then. It was something we knew of from me and my business partner, who both worked in London for a while. We just did a pub with better food.

It was tough to get going at first. We just kind of made the pub that we all wanted to hang out at. We didn't contract any of the beer taps to start with -- we gave everyone an even playing field, which was also really weird because some of the big companies weren't happy about it.

We were surrounded by pubs where all the menus were the same -- pub classics like parmi's and all that stuff. All the beers were the same everywhere. They're huge operations with gaming and everything. We were like, "We're never going to compete with this if we just try and do the same thing." So we did everything in-house from scratch. Had some decent cocktails. Had probably one of the first espresso martinis on tap -- us and someone in Melbourne were sort of competing for who put it on tap first.

The best one was we put Americanos on tap. It sounds so mainstream now, but it just wasn't a thing. Still to this day, best Americano I've ever had. When you make one, you've got two non-carbonated ingredients -- your Campari and sweet vermouth -- and then you put a little dash of soda and it's sort of bubbly but not really. This was perfectly cold, carbonated all the way -- and it also made it a little bit of a dry drink. You know how Coca-Cola when it's lost its fizz tastes sweeter because the CO2 dries your palate out? This sort of did the same thing. Just bang -- orange. I drank so many every day. It was so bad.

We won Best New Pub in Australia, which was good. I picked up Australian Publican of the Year, which was hilarious because we were just small bar operators doing pub stuff. But I definitely learned that growing costs money -- money we didn't necessarily have. We'd come up with ideas, do cool things like whiskey dinners which weren't common, then your competition picks it up so quickly. If they've got budget behind them, a month later you're competing against your own idea that someone can do better because they've got a bigger budget. It's that constant trying to revolve.

We definitely did the ping pong tables in beer gardens and giant Jenga. Funny thing -- we did it because we didn't have enough furniture to fill the beer garden. Someone had a ping pong table in their garage, we were like "We'll take it." Then someone else had one -- "Oh yeah, we got two. We'll have tournaments." Six months later I had people calling me trying to sell me giant Jenga sets. We started that! We were down at Bunnings getting massive planks of wood -- the guy hated me making Jenga sets. "I need them this big -- fifty of them." Like a thousand of them. Good fun.

Building the Duke of Clarence

Steve: So you asked me about the Clarence. We had to pack up and move on from our own business after a couple of years -- put it down to life lessons. Probably a lot of people didn't expect me to go straight into another British-themed pub, but I thought I'd do it.

Mikey had started talking about it because he'd heard on the grapevine I was going to move to Sydney. I'd met him on a trip to the UK with Bombay Sapphire. I knew who he was for years before that, had a lot of respect for him. He said, "Oh, we're doing a new venue." First thing out of my mouth was, "Mate, I don't care what it is, I'll do it -- so long as it's not a British pub." He was like, "Uh..." I thought about it but wanted to do it.

Mikey's vision was awesome -- putting hand pumps in, which came with their own headaches trying to get UK mechanisms to take UK connectors and adapt them to Australian sizes and kegs. But we just had to find people who knew what we were talking about and had the skills to manufacture it. Sometimes when you're doing something unique, those people just sort of come out of the woodwork and find you. "Oh, you're doing this? I used to do it." One guy -- "Oh, I used to make cask ale in the UK."

Getting all these old cool beers -- London Pride, Old Speckled Hen -- serving proper English pub grub. Dave Penniston, who was the chef there, was awesome -- made a great roast, great scotch egg.

The fit-out was amazing. The entire interior of the Duke of Clarence was all second-hand from a couple of pubs in the UK -- it just came over in shipping containers. The designer -- her name escapes me -- was a film set designer who did movies like Moulin Rouge. Mikey knew her and was like "We want a pub that looks like this," and I guess this is how she knew how to do it. Even the books on the bookshelf in there -- they're all old, a lot of them from the 1800s. That level of detail is just... it fits. The tabletops -- I think one of them was 160 years old or something. It's crazy.

The best thing -- it also just smelt like an old English boozer. As soon as they put that floor in, we were like, "Home."

We produced some great bartenders there. It was really tough for a while trying to get them -- everyone saw us on the surface as "that's a pub." Cocktail bartenders didn't want to work in pubs at the time. But eventually we got that core team. It was brilliant.

UK vs US vs Australia: Bar Culture Differences

Ronan: You would have brought over some techniques from London. I know I got to experience the drip-style Irish coffee -- I don't know how many people were doing that before.

Steve: That was through Mikey -- they wanted to do it. We worked with William Grant to bring over Jillian Vose from The Dead Rabbit. Leading into that, the Irish coffee that The Dead Rabbit do -- many years beforehand, Dale DeGroff, I think it was London Bar Week or Bar Show, decided to make one. I remember there being excitement -- "Dale's making Irish coffee, it's cool, let's go check that out." Dead Rabbit definitely refined and popularised that, made it more mainstream to get a good Irish coffee somewhere.

Ronan: Were there any other techniques on the same wavelength that you brought over?

Steve: I noticed when I moved back and came to Sydney that Australia probably leans a little more towards the American style of doing things in some parts. Coming straight out of London, I was very much more British style influenced. But these days, information just gets shared so quickly -- you just Google things. Things have probably become a lot more standardised.

There's definitely things that have disappeared. I remember noticing sour glasses never made it to Australia. A sour glass is like a little goblet -- whenever I used to make a whiskey sour, it would come in one of those. If you wanted it on the rocks, you would have to specify. The same as ordering a martini -- if you wanted a martini on the rocks, which is a great drink, bring that back -- you would specify. Whereas over here, on the rocks is standard. When it did start getting served up over here, it was more coupes, occasionally Nick and Noras. I love a little sour glass -- nice and short, it gathers the foam nicely so you can drink through it. The wider the glass, the thinner the foam.

There's heaps of little differences. Martini on the rocks -- if you ordered one in Sydney, they'd look at you super strange. But you're drinking an Old Fashioned on the rocks -- it's just people's perceptions.

I remember the first time I went to Cognac -- I didn't see a single brandy balloon the entire time I was there. All little ISO tasting glasses. I did an event for Rémy Martin Black Pearl -- stupidly expensive bottle of cognac -- launch at Salvatore's Bar. We had all the guys from Rémy Martin over and they all drank XO on the rocks. It was so funny. You're going to argue? They make it! You're going to tell them they can't have it? "Sure, no worries." The more you know about it and the closer you are to it, the less precious you seem to be.

Rapid Fire: Bar Luxuries

Ronan: Rapid fire -- bar luxuries. Vertical rinser or crushed ice machine?

Steve: Crushed ice machine.

Ronan: Crushed ice or clear ice?

Steve: Crushed ice. Sorry, Danny.

Ronan: Crushed ice or chilled glassware?

Steve: Crushed ice. I can chill glassware myself with it.

Ronan: Crushed ice or a prep shift?

Steve: Crushed ice.

Ronan: Crushed ice or a dedicated barback?

Steve: Crushed ice.

Ronan: Crushed ice or a non-polished glass washer?

Steve: Crushed ice. It can chill glasses, you can nestle things in a well to keep them chilled, frozen drinks are way easier to make with it. It's just a super versatile ingredient. Even down to prep shifts -- you can buy good quality sugar syrups. Prep hours are probably more important for your house cocktails, but there's at least 10 great classics to every one good menu cocktail I see. If you know how to make a lot of classics well, and you've got lemon, lime juice, a couple of basic syrups and a good back bar -- you don't need hours and hours of prep.

Ronan: Crushed ice -- the unsung hero.

The International Spirits Academy

Ronan: Talk about the International Spirits Academy. How did you get started with it?

Steve: I was at Buff and Tone, enjoying my role there, and I got approached by Judith Kennedy from Ginventus and the other guys involved -- Charles Casman as well. I'd been involved with the Australian Gin Awards previously as a judge.

There's a gap for people in the spirits business on the hospitality side and the retail side. There's a certification gap. If you're in wine or beer, you can get your Master of Wine or your Master Cicerone. The spirits industry is huge -- such a massive market, leaning into cocktails and not just premium whiskies, cognacs, and tequilas. But there's not really anything to push for and have that standardised measure of knowledge.

So the guys have based the certification on the CMS -- the Court of Master Sommeliers. There's four different levels, working up to Master of Eau de Vie. You start with an introductory course, then do a practical sensory analysis and written exam to get your first certification. Then two other levels above that. It's going to be hard. Really hard.

Honestly, until it was put in front of me, I didn't even realise there was nothing like that for spirits. You can go and become a distiller, but as I mentioned, distilling is a lot of workplace health and safety, scientific practices -- whereas selling the stuff, that's where the gap was.

We want to deliver the equivalent of a qualified sommelier level of education and certification for spirits professionals. The response has been really good. We had our first class in October -- two days, in person. It's very old school the way we're doing things. It's not online. We do have online support material, but you get a textbook, you read it. Charts and graphs going through legislation, different traditions, geography, production.

The idea is you sit in a classroom with live tutors. The cool thing is we're not associated with any one brand -- we're not selling booze. We can have whoever the hell we want, which is really cool.

Ronan: Has it gone international yet?

Steve: We've only done our first one. Next class is in March, and we're doing Stage 2 as well now that we've got graduates from October.

As far as people involved -- Bill Lark, Australian whiskey icon, is our patron. He wrote the foreword and was super helpful looking through the content, adding little pieces of wisdom. Judith Kennedy -- 30-something years in the wine business -- is our chair. Charles Casman, education chair, also wine background, super knowledgeable about spirits. I get the impression he's one of those guys who's never forgotten anything he's read -- which I'm definitely not. I have to revise all the time.

We had Phil Bayly come and talk agave spirits -- Phil was globally the guy for tequila 20 years ago. I did a lesson with him at London Bar Show maybe 20-something years ago. Thomas Estes was there as well, which was awesome. James Mutton teaches whiskey for us -- 33, maybe 35 years of whiskey education now. Ned Goodwin, Master of Wine, talks about fortified wines and is a massive fan of sherry -- great for learning about sherry finishes for whiskey ageing. Tom Bulmer told us all things rum in his best tiki shirt. Tim Stones, my ex-head distiller, talked about production. Charlie, our education chair, covered history and legislation -- knowing differences between production methods in countries, labelling laws. It sounds like a lot, but you get your head around it and it gives you an advantage. If you see a white rum made in Australia, legally it has to be aged for a minimum of two years to be called rum. So automatically you know this is filtered through something, probably charcoal, to take the colour out -- or it's been redistilled or blended with something. It puts you at an advantage straight away.

The ISA's First Students

Steve: The first people we had through -- the one thing everybody had in common: they were all really successful people in their own right. I had a director of food and beverage for a five-star hotel. Someone heading up a new distillery who was also a director of a major national booze supplier. Someone who founded a very well-known brand distributor. Working distillers. Former Australian Bartender of the Year. Bartender Magazine Bartender of the Year.

I was a little bit surprised at the standard -- people jumped in straight away. It's that attitude towards learning. All these people are like, "I've got more to learn. I can always learn more. I can always get better." It was probably a bit nerve-wracking for all the tutors on the first day, seeing all these faces of people who are really good at what they do. But that's the other thing it does -- it's not just creating certification for new people. You can also formalise existing experience and knowledge. Why not get certified for it?

Ronan: What's your role within the company?

Steve: My title is ISA Executive. A little bit of spokesperson for it, contact to the industry. Sales is a big part of my job as well, but a lot of the time I'm just reaching out, getting in contact with people, telling them what we're doing. The automatic thing we get is, "What's this? Why is it different from everything else that's out there?" -- which are all valid questions. We're bringing something new. All the brand education that's out there -- it's great. I suggest you do it. You want to do WSET? Do it, it's amazing. There's no such thing as too much learning. Don't turn down opportunities to invest in yourself.

What we do just adds something else onto that. We are the only company doing diploma-level certification for spirits.

Ronan: These diplomas -- if they didn't exist before, what was the process behind creating a certification like that?

Steve: You've got companies -- WSET, Court of Master Sommeliers, all these things. In Australia, you have what's called an RTO -- registered training authority. None of these are an RTO. A lot of it is time in the game, reputation, and people recognising that this is the benchmark for it. You can go down the route of becoming an RTO -- costs a lot of money and doesn't necessarily add anything. In fact, sometimes you can be told to dumb it down a little. We're not going down that route. There are RTOs for distilling, but for anything in hospitality and retail -- nothing. If anyone tells you that they are, they're not. It doesn't add any value to the student.

Rapid Fire: Cocktails

Ronan: Last rapid fire. Margaritas or Old Fashioneds?

Steve: Old Fashioned.

Ronan: Old Fashioneds or Daiquiris?

Steve: Going back to Daiquiri.

Ronan: Daiquiris or Spritzes?

Steve: Daiquiri.

Ronan: Daiquiris or Tiki?

Steve: Daiquiri.

Ronan: Daiquiris or Martinis?

Steve: That's so hard. I can't imagine life without the other. God, I just can't answer that. Martini.

Ronan: Martinis or Sours?

Steve: Martini.

Ronan: Martinis or Highballs?

Steve: Martini.

Ronan: Martinis or Slushies?

Steve: Definitely martinis.

Ronan: Martinis or Negronis?

Steve: Oh, I think I'm going to go Negroni. I may change my mind in the car on the way home.

Steve McDermott is an Executive at the International Spirits Academy (ISA). Follow ISA for upcoming course dates and certification details. This episode was recorded December 2024.