A touch of Gatsby-era, old-world charm with modern flourishes – that’s the concept that architectural firm Bates Smart has brought to life in cocktail bar The Douglas Club. Housed in the new Hilton Melbourne Little Queen Street, specifically in the heritage-listed Equity Chambers building, The Douglas Club sits at the entrance serving contemporary interpretations of 1930s-era cocktails.

Inside you’ll find décor that matches the Golden Age-style drinks: lowered ceilings and a stormy colour palette create a brooding atmosphere across two rooms. Guests can sink into one of the emerald green velvet couches or sit at the bar and see the mixology at work.

To celebrate the reopening, Broadsheet and the Douglas Club bar manager Gee Shanmugam have collaborated to produce a limited-edition, house-smoked cocktail called the Maple Lane. We talk to Gee about The Douglas Club, what inspired the Maple Lane, and some of the seriously interesting ingredients he’s using to make it.

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The Douglas Club

Great hotels are essentially obliged to feature a classy cocktail bar, and for Hilton LQS that bar is The Douglas Club. As the Equity Chambers building was built in 1930, The Douglas Club plays to theme by jazzing up the 1930s-inspired cocktail menu, with contemporary twists.

“We kind of went for the 1920s, 1930s – the golden era of travel,” Shanmugam says, explaining that public fascination with aeroplanes was huge at the time. That means you’ll find names on the cocktail list like the DC3, named (like the bar itself) for the Douglas DC-3, a slick, silver aircraft from the 1930s. Other cocktail classics have had Shanmugam’s twists and updates, like the Hemingway-inspired Death in the Afternoon, with its combo of absinthe, sparkling wine and house-made falernum.

If you’re interested in learning more about the history of the building, there are 20-30 minute self-guided Hotel History Tours that explore the heritage of the area.

The Maple Lane

Shanmugam’s limited-edition drink, the Maple Lane, takes its inspiration from one of the ornate Heritage Master suites in the hotel upstairs. Specifically, it’s the choice of timber that has directed his cocktail.

“That whole room is designed and has been made with classic Australian maple wood,” Shanmugam says. “I made a drink a few months ago, a twist on a Boulevardier where I smoked my own whiskey.”

A Boulevardier is essentially a Negroni in which the gin is subbed for whiskey, but Shanmugam has veered into some unique territory. Inspired, he decided to make the Maple Lane using maple wood – nice and subtle – to smoke rye whiskey, the potent 100-proof Rittenhouse. He serves the finished drink under a dome. “It has the right amount of smoke in it,” Shanmugam says.

The piece de resistance

To complete the Maple Lane, Shanmugam mixes Antica Formula vermouth with a couple of his own tricks: a light misting of absinthe and a few drops of Peychaud’s Bitters combine with a fig-and-rosemary syrup reduction for an intriguing effect that’s both sweet and savoury.

Before the whole thing gets smoked, it’s garnished with rosemary candy praline that Shanmugam’s making in-house. How? Well, a blend of angostura, rosemary and sugar is turned into a syrup and left to harden overnight. “You take it out the next day and you crack it on the table, and it cracks into little candies,” Shanmugam says. “That just rests on the side of the glass. So when you have that big, bold drink, you bite that little praline and … I feel it just marries really well.”

The Maple Lane is available exclusively at The Douglas Club until the end of November.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with The Douglas Club.