By Leigh O’Connor.
Australia’s cocktail scene is getting dirt under its fingernails - in the best possible way. Step into the right bar on a warm evening and you’ll catch it: the green, sharp perfume of crushed lemon myrtle, the tiny floral sigh of native violets, the snap of finger lime pearls popping like citrus caviar.
This is Garden to Glass and it’s quietly turning bartenders into part-time foragers, backyard gardeners and shameless herb-bed raiders.
Not long ago, a ‘botanical cocktail’ might’ve meant a gin and tonic with a sprig of rosemary pretending to be fancy. Now? It’s a full-spectrum flavour obsession. Bartenders are elbow-deep in basil forests and flower pots, racing to capture what Australia tastes like right now - on this street, in this season, under this particular sun.
Walk behind the bar at any serious venue and you’ll see the new tool kit. There’s still the shaker, sure, but beside it: jars of house-fermented rosella, a vinegar made from green ants (yes, really), salts smoked over gum leaves and a tray of edible blossoms lined up like jewels.
A bartender might be slicing a citrus from someone’s backyard tree, or stripping the leaves off a just-picked pineapple sage plant before it wilts. The ingredients are alive and that aliveness is the point.
Botanical cocktails aren’t just about taste - they’re about time. Seasonality is the new swagger. When Autumn hits and mandarins turn sweet and lazy, they show up in clarified punches and bright, peel-heavy shrubs. Winter brings heavy herbs and rooty warmth: thyme syrup, burnt orange, wattleseed bitters, maybe a smoky quandong twist that feels like a campfire in a glass.
In Spring, everything gets a little flirty - elderflower, wattle blossom, jasmine tea, strawberry gum. Summer is pure chaos in the most joyful way: watermelon radish infusions, mint exploding out of pots, passionfruit vines going feral, limes everywhere.
There’s also a distinctly Australian kind of playfulness to it. We’ve always had big gardens, back verandahs full of pots and neighbours who can’t stop feeding you produce. That culture is sliding straight into the cocktail world.
One bartender will tell you about pilfering bay leaves from their mum’s tree. Another will confess to keeping a secret stash of nasturtiums growing on their apartment balcony, "just for the bar.” It feels less like a trend and more like a slightly tipsy extension of who we already are.
Then there are the natives. The real glow-up of Garden to Glass is what happens when bartenders start treating Australian botanicals not as novelty garnish, but as the soul of the drink.
Lemon myrtle brings a bright, almost electric lift. Davidson plum is tart and deep, like a berry with a dramatic backstory. Riberry tastes like spice and rainforest air. Pepperberry leaf can make a Martini feel like it’s wearing a tailored black coat. These flavours don’t just decorate a cocktail - they steer it.
What’s beautiful is how this shift is changing the vibe at the bar. Guests are no longer just ordering a drink; they’re stepping into a tiny story about place, about growth, about a mood you can sip. A glass might arrive looking like a miniature garden: cloudy green, beaded with dew, topped with a marigold that smells faintly of citrus. You take a sip and it’s bracing and wild and oddly comforting, like biting into something you picked yourself.
Garden to Glass also scratches a modern itch for sustainability without making a big song and dance about it. If your mint grows out back, you’re not shipping it across the country. If your citrus peel becomes an oleo-saccharum, nothing gets wasted. If your bar has a rooftop planter full of rosemary, lillypilly and Vietnamese mint, you’re literally turning sunlight into hospitality.
So yes, Australian bartenders are raiding herb beds and citrus groves. They’re doing it with muddy hands, sharp palates and a little grin that says, "Trust me.” The future of cocktails here doesn’t live in a lab or a bottle - it’s growing outside, right now, in the garden.
It tastes like Australia finally realised the best bar cart was in the backyard all along.
