After landing in Sydney I moved to Melbourne where I fancied my hand at a different job… sales. I was pretty good at it if I do say so myself, working on commission, I was able to enjoy my time in Melbourne as well as save. But it was long hours asking people to buy products, there was only so long I could do that for.
I travelled around a bit with the money I had saved until it started to run low, this was when I found myself in the middle of the desert… Alice Springs. Other than a few restaurants, bars and a couple of hostels, there was nothing around for days. Here of all places was where my cocktail journey began.
I applied for a job at all three of the bars in the town and two of them wanted experience behind the bar (I figured that I’d only be serving at most 10 people a day, how much experience did I really need…). However, the final bar had employed a new manager and he took me on. He was implementing a cocktail menu into the bar – it was the only bar in town to serve cocktails. Over the next couple of months I learnt the trade and was promoted to Assistant Manager by the end of month three. Cocktails were a new trend in Alice and they went down a storm… repeat customers would visit us every week to try our new concoctions from the menu.
I had been in Alice for a good seven months and other than enjoying my work, there was really nothing else to do. It was the peak of summer with temperatures hitting 45-50°C and it was beginning to become unbearable… I picked up where I left off with my travels and carried on through Australia and into Asia. Time for another adventure…