The Club Bar Park, Hyatt hotel
Want single malts, cigars and cocktails? Here's the place, says Myffy Rigby
Start at the beginning and work your way through, carefully
If log fires, mahogany, overstuffed armchairs, Dean Martin and a nip of aged, peaty whisky sounds like something you might be interested in, you could do worse than pull up a stool. Think the Gold Room in Kubrick's The Shining, minus the dead people, creepy bartender and crazy old Jack Nicholson - but keep the mahogany finish, plush warm interiors and excellent booze.
The incredibly classic cocktail list (all drinks short and tall including much loved regulars like Martinis and Aviations as well as more arcane drinks like the Martinez, Monkey Gland and White Lady) backs up the feel here while the bar takes precedence in the space with dark grey, mottled marble horse-shoeing around the room. There are nice touches like spiced nuts at the bar and there's also the humidor filled with rare cigars, though with the new smoking laws you'll have to step outside to enjoy one.
Don't expect the type of barperson who'll listen to you cry into the bottom of your glass then refill it with a kind word and a pat on the back - it's a bit more mechanical than that. But that's not to say that it isn't accomplished. They'll make you anything down to an old man's hat filled with perfume, it's just not particularly personable.
But the main event is the whisky. There's a huge range of Macallum (ranging from their 1951 to some younger drops) but you can also try the flight of Glenmorangie complete with tasting notes for each type. The really tasty stuff, though, is the Lagavulin - a whisky with so much personality it does a tap dance on the way out the bottle and trips on the tongue leaving the most luxurious mouth feel. It'd want to for 20-odd dollars a nip.
This isn't the sort of bar you'd visit for Singapore Slings, Slippery Nipples, frosty Mojitos or anything particularly festive (though they'd make them for you with no complaints if you asked). It's more about slipping into something a little more comfortable, like an old slipper. Fat cigars, straight spirits, a well-worn armchair and thou.
And happily, there's no recurring New Years' Eve.
The Club Bar, Park Hyatt Hotel 7 Hickson Rd, Millers Point 2000. (02 9256 1877). Daily, 5pm-late.