Cocktails by Adelaide's Maybe Mae

A step-by-step guide to two of Maybe Mae's iconic cocktails - the Spiced Crusta and the Crystal Collins.

Up there on any list of Australia's best bars is Adelaide's Maybe Mae – a hidden 1950s-style cocktail lounge with a hyper-local approach to ingredients. Everything you find in the drinks here can usual be traced back to area around the city or the plethora of produce SA grows each year. These days there's even stunning native floral installations to celebrate what comes from our soil.

Drinks wise, the style is best described by owner Ollie Margan who told us that "very few of our drinks follow an orthodox format. That said, here are two drinks that I believe encapsulate all that we stand for, as well as having universal application."

For when you can't get to Adelaide, you can now bring a bit of Maybe Mae to your home.

Spiced Crusta

By Adam Hingston – Maybe Mae

Shopping List
10g black tea leaves
2.5g citric acid
3 fig leaves
300g honey
1 bottle Never Never Amaro (Averna could substitute)
1 bottle Campari
1 bottle Never Never Triple Juniper Gin (Plymouth could substitute)
Almond biscotti for garnish

Method: FIRST STEP, make the Acid Rectified Black Tea. Brew 10 grams of black tea leaves in 100 grams of water, steep for 3 minutes. Strain off and add 2.5gm citric acid, stir to dissolve.

SECOND STEP, make your Burnt Fig Leaf Honey. Pour 300 grams of boiling water over 3 fig leaves coarsely shredded, steep for 20 minutes. Add 300 grams of honey to a non-stick pan over med/high heat. Boil until it turns a deep amber colour, remove from the heat. Add your water/fig leaf mixture and set to cool. Strain liquid off.

To Serve: SHAKE all ingredients over ice and fine strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with an almond biscotti.
30ml Never Never Amaro
20ml Campari
15ml Never Never Triple Juniper Gin
20ml Acid rectified black tea
15ml Burnt fig leaf honey

Crystal Collins

By Ollie Margan – Maybe Mae

Shopping List
1 bottle cold pressed mandarin juice
3 - 4 mandarins
1 bottle Never Never Triple Juniper Gin (Any London dry style could substitute)
1 bottle fino sherry
Orange bitters
Simple syrup (or make at home by combining 1:1 water and sugar over heat)
Citric acid

Method: FIRST STEP, make the acid rectified mandarin by straining the pulp from the cold pressed juice and adding 2.5 grams of citric acid to 100ml of juice.

SECOND STEP, make the mandarin fino sherry. Soak the peels of the mandarins in Fino sherry for approx one hour, or until aromatic, at a rate of one whole peel to 100ml sherry.

To Serve: SHAKE all the ingredients over ice and fine strain into a chilled Collins glass over ice. TOP with soda and garnish with a dehydrated mandarin wheel

45ml Never Never Triple Juniper Gin
15ml mandarin fino sherry
40ml acid rectified mandarin
15ml simple syrup (1:1)
2 dash orange bitters