Underwent interior renovations for a couple of years and reopened in 1998 as a smaller Botanic Bar. Botanic Bar occupies one of those grandiose, verandah-wrapped edifices that one normally associates with vast renovated pubs. However, Botanic is not interested in pokies and pints. Instead, it worships the temple of the divine cocktail.
Three full-time cocktail bartenders devote themselves entirely to maintaining, expanding and serving a massive list of 40-odd cocktails. There's a dizzying array of booze behind the bar (including more than 50 liqueurs). Here, the bar staff shake, build, stir and blend an endless stream of mixes, from muddles to martinis and sours.
DJs entertain Botanic's crowd of uni students and miscellaneous young things on most night, spinning funk, breaks and electro-house tunes. There's no dance floor for people to really let loose on, but the crowd seems more than happy to stand and wiggle, or sit on leather sofas and sway from there.
On quieter nights, the billiard room offers a refined twist on the standard pub pool hall, with two full-sized tables testing the limits of myopic pool hounds.
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