Drinks Digest is celebrating the release of its latest book, Melbourne Cocktails, an elegant collection of recipes by the city’s top bartenders.

The release follows last year’s successful Sydney Cocktails, which sold out in bookstores across the country.

Discover Melbourne’s eclectic nightlife, hidden spaces, dynamic food and wine scene and more with this new collection of signature drinks.

Authored by Drinks Digest founder Alana House, with more than 100 recipes and bartender profiles, Melbourne Cocktails helps you drink like a local whether you’re heading out for the night or entertaining at home. From Polynesian tiki bars to 70s-inspired retro lounges, locals and visitors alike will discover new watering holes and cocktail favourites.

Melbourne’s bar scene is globally renowned. On history-filled corners, down atmospheric laneways and on scenic rooftops you will find some of the world’s best bartenders shaking innovative cocktails until the sun rises again.

According to Drinking History Tours founder Ben Oliver booze has played a key role in the city’s history from the moment it was founded.

Only settled by Europeans in 1835, Melbourne wasted no time in establishing its nighttime economy. By 1839 the town boasted 20 pubs – the Australian versions of bars or taverns.

“I always knew Melbourne had a great bar scene, even before I moved here from Perth in 2005,” Ben explains.

“What I didn’t realise was the weird confluence of historical factors that came together like a jigsaw puzzle to build the city in the first place.

“Our first mayor was a brewer, the first meeting of the Melbourne City Council took place inside a pub and, five years after it was founded, there was one pub for every 240 people.”

Cocktails were not on the menu in those early days. The pubs served shots of rum, with beer slowly gaining in popularity over the decades that followed.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that Melbourne’s modern cocktail scene really began to flourish, producing one of the disco era’s favourite drinks, the Japanese Slipper.

A young French bartender called Jean-Paul Bourguignon was working at Mietta’s Restaurant when he was handed a bottle of a new spirit called Midori by a sales representative. He decided to mix the melon liqueur with Cointreau and fresh lemon juice and a mixology legend was born.

According to Punch, the drink’s simple build and fresh citrus have earned it a place alongside New York’s Cosmopolitan and London’s Bramble as Melbourne’s contribution to the early days of the cocktail revival.

It’s since been reimagined by Melbourne bars ranging from Above Board (above) to Lustre.

Melbourne can also take credit for producing one of the world’s most famous bartenders, Sam Ross. Sam, who spent many years behind the bar at New York’s iconic Milk & Honey and was named 2011 American Bartender of the Year, is famed for creating modern cocktail classics including the Penicillin and the Paper Plane.

His career kicked off as a teenager, while helping his mother and sister open a bar called Ginger on Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Within a few years, Brunswick Street had gained the reputation of being the epicentre of the Australian cocktail scene, with bars including the famed Black Pearl opening nearby.

When the bright lights of New York City beckoned, Sam convinced the founder of Milk & Honey, Sasha Petraske, to hire him.

A year later, Sam created the Penicillin, a cocktail that expertly blended Scotch whisky with fresh lemon juice and honey-ginger syrup, finished with a bar spoon of smoky Islay whisky floated on top.

Melbourne bartenders have continued to make their mark globally over the years, including Orlando Marzo from the boundary-pushing Lume restaurant in South Melbourne, who bested more than 10,000 bartenders to win the 2018 Diageo World Class competition.

And now, in the 2020s, Melbourne’s bar scene is the equal to that of any major city in the world.

Melbourne Cocktails is available from good bookstores throughout Australia and can also be ordered on Amazon.