A Pegleg and a Captain’s Hook all in a Pyrmont Bar

A Pegleg, A Hook, An eyepatch – All in one Bar

Manuel shares his views on a unique hospitality experience

Making his way by boat to a Sydney Pyrmont bar for a podcast Cullen sets out for a destination with a distinctively different flavor.

Set in a brilliantly old part of Sydney where you can catch the breeze along with the latest rum that carries a good story.

He his way by boat from Circular Quay is Sydney by boat on a hot tip heading for one of Sydney’s most notable Pyrmont Bars.

His adventure starts out when he interviews Manuel on the unique feel from one of Sydney’s interesting bars with a distinctively seaside feel.

Manuel starts out by saying

“Our inspiration on hospitality is to make people feel welcome from the moment they arrive here.” So that’s the part of our philosophy on the hospitality, which is about the experience that we gave to our guests.

Cullen notes the kind of run and feel of an old ship here an old boat that’s setting sail lead by at least one or two finer pirate beards if ever you’ve seen them

Now I understand you’ve got a much longer name than Manuel.

The full Spanish name is Jose Manuel Alvarez Gonzalez, or you can just call me Manuel.

It’s a bit of a stormy sort of day here in Sydney, and we are just looking out and seeing these ropes swinging in the wind, you know, as I walked through the bar, there is also lots of old memorabilia and seashells and it sort of got a bit of what I would call maybe a Tiki bar kind of a feeling. But it’s not a Tiki bar is that right?

Treasure chest Sydney — Brown treasure chest Sydney

Well we, we came with something like Collin and myself talking about it where we are at, perhaps as the predecessors of Tiki.

Our conversation turns to the ideas of pirates and other people going to out into the Polynesian islands. Various sailors had also started to explore different parts of the world, which is of course in a way is where we are now a part of that explored world here in Pyrmont.

Manuel mentions we both have beards, but Cullen feels Manuel’s beard is somehow more pirate-like than most.

Yeah. I can’t cut it, and I haven’t cut it since. We started building this ship, so it is part of the process. I take my character, beard and more along for the journey. They call me Capitan Manuel.

I also like Juan Snow

Do you want to tell us a little bit about the menu here?

Because I’ve been sampling some of the Rums with Collin and I’m very impressed. What’s the menu and the relationship, the menu with the whole look and feel of the bar.

Well first let’s go to your main spirits of focus, and that breaks out into Rum and Gin.

So when we first opened, we had a cocktail menu divided by captain drinks, which back then, used to be Gin.

So Gin was in that high-class period that it was given to the captain, and then you have Rum which was the drink of the crew. That’s how it was divided out our earlier between captain and crew.

Also, apart from all the delicious cocktails, we can provide some of the best Australian beers and Australian wines. We have a big emphasis on Australian made products. We are now a part of the neighborhood.

The kind of venue where someone that lives around the area will go up to five times a week, so we don’t want to alienate people by only doing cocktails or only doing beers.

So we have a pretty open portfolio on the products we serve. It’s an interesting mix of people you find here in Pyrmont.

Apart from a lot of offices which are a lot of media-related business, it is now the gateway to many coworking spaces

You also have the casino close by so on a Monday to Friday, you get a lot of office workers on their way home.

And a lot of people who work on the CBD and they live on Glebe, Newtown, and they pass by this area on a daily basis. And from time to time they want to stop here for a drink.

And just I guess looking around, trying to describe this place to people, as we are sitting now in the booths at the back and they’ve also got a bit of a ship feeling to them, and it’s a very comfortable, a very cozy place and it seems to entertain.

Was there a history for you leading up to this in terms of the ship life, I guess if you want to call it or a sailor’s life?

A lot of this inspiration came through the history of the building. For Collin and myself, we wanted to provide our patrons with an experience. One that runs, into a different reality because that’s what we find hospitality is entertainment, that’s what we give to the people.

And part of the entertainment is the feeling that you just described.A way of making you feel like you might during a stay on the ship, and that’s what we want to achieve.

We want people to feel like they were stepping back in time as this place is 158 years old and where probably some of the first settlers coming to Australia landed and had a pie.

So we want to make them feel sailors or pirates enjoying that nip of Rum.

Yeah. And another interesting rum that Collin gave me details on is that this is actually a New Zealand rum.

Yeah, it is. As you probably know, a Spiced Rum is a pretty strong category here in Australia, and the Kiwis decided to put their input in on this product.

Yep. Really good.

It makes it really well with Ginger Ale, which surprisingly is one of the main drinks I’ve found in Sydney.

That’s great. What other drink would you recommend people to try when they come here?

Well, cocktails is my first choice. We put a lot of effort and input on the cocktail menu. We decided to keep it simple, and just give an offer of 12 different cocktails.

Yeah.

And I also want to know the feeling of the night so if people just want to have one drink or if they’re going for dinner. Because that for me is important in crafting the right drink. For example, most of our main regulars, just drink beer and they have it five times a week. So that’s why we work with a lot of small boutique Australian breweries.

That’s great. And I noticed that quite often the small boutique breweries use no preservatives, sometimes quite often they’re organic and so you’ve got a selection of those sort of boutique beers here as well?

Yes, we do. And something that really surprised me as soon as I moved to Australia is the great quality products you can find around. From the beers, the wine and also the food. I mean we are here in Australia, so we want to bring these in character and in play for everybody. Why would I want to import European products if I can find some really tasty Australian ones?

Yeah, absolutely. I guess just wrapping up in a way, what advice would you give the traveler’s who are coming to Sydney for the first time? If they just had a couple of days?

Obviously coming here, try one of our spiced rums, try one of your cocktails is a great place to start, but where else would you recommend people would go in Sydney that maybe is not so usual, places that you would recommend to somebody at the bar that people might not know, so anywhere else that you would think.

I live by the ocean, so that’s definitely one of my biggest recommendations. I always tell people, go to Bondi beach. Probably Bondi beach is one of the main touristic destinations where you got some other places around the area. You can even go to Watson Bay where you have a beautiful view of the city, and you are some of the best cliffs around the area for some great views and photographs you can take.

From Watson’s bay yeah?

Yeah. From Watson’s way and then heading into the Pacific side, you walk all the way up to the cliff, and you get some beautiful views from there. Also Bondi Beach, I will not say no. You can do the famous Bondi to Coogee walk. And it’s not overly crowded.

Alright, that’s great. Thank you very much for spending some time. I can see people coming in, and it looks like the ship is filling up. People are coming on board, and so I just wanted to say thank you very much for taking some time.

I know it’s a busy night for you and really appreciate you spending a few minutes with us before your cruise on into the night and I guess set sail and really bought

Thank you for your opportunity to be part of the podcast, and I would love to have all of your guests coming here to Peg Leg and have a night with us.

And do you have a website people can go to, as well.

We have a facebook page. Super easy to find.

Brilliant. Thank you very much for your time. My pleasure. Thank you.

Join us for part 2 of the podcast https://eattmag.com/a-sydney-pyrmont-bar/

Peg Leg is one of Sydney’s most notable Pyrmont Bars find out more on their Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/Peglegpyrmont/