Acclaimed Melbourne bar Black Pearl has become the Steven Bradbury of Aussie cocktail-making, claiming the title of Best Bar in Australasia by staying steady as its Sydney competition crashed to the ice.
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At the World's 50 Best Bars awards in London on Thursday the fixture of Fitzroy, the training ground for some of the country's best bartenders, was judged the 22nd-best in the world - and the best on the continent.
Black Pearl also ranked at 22 in the awards last year, but was then beaten by Sydney's Baxter Inn which came in at number 12.
This year, though, Baxter Inn slumped to number 45.
The awards do tend to lurch around like a customer who's had a few too many of Black Pearl's concoctions, though.
Two years ago Baxter Inn was judged the sixth best bar in the world, and Black Pearl the tenth.
The awards are voted by the industry, and Australia's two best bars are perennial favourites.
It was a year in which classics rated well.
The American Bar at London's Savoy Hotel was voted the world's best bar for the first time. It's the oldest cocktail bar in London, established in 1904, and it's survived two world wars and served Winston Churchill (who kept a private bottle of whiskey behind the bar) and Ernest Hemingway.
It sells one of the country's most expensive cocktails (??5000) and one of its bartenders invented the infamous 'prairie oyster' hangover cure.
Black Pearl, meanwhile, is about to celebrate its 15th birthday.
In the meantime, Black Pearl has another award to put next to the big one: the title of 'best international cocktail bar' from the prestigious Spirited Awards in New Orleans in July.
