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Shady Pines Saloon

Rachel Olding

Country and western has taken a bad wrap over the years. The music is daggy, the accents are almost indecipherable and, unless you like check shirts and shoestring ties, the clothes are rather hideous. But country and western is cool again.

Why? Because cool people say so. Anton Forte and Jason Scott have opened one of the coolest new small bars in the inner city: a country-and-western-style tavern that plays a lot of Johnny Cash and serves everything with liberal lashings of southern charm.

ON ANY NIGHT OF THE WEEK Shady Pines seems to be busy, which is remarkable for a two-month-old small bar and even more remarkable when you realise how damn hard it is to find this place. Not only is it tucked away in a Darlinghurst back alley but the front facade is covered in a drab, white curtain.

Inside is a different world. Small wooden tables are bundled together around a darkened concrete room filled with taxidermied deer, Americana woodcarvings and a longhorn steer so big it would stop Butch Cassidy in his tracks. "Howdy doodie," is the greeting from Forte, who zips around offering service as good as any diner in the deep south.

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THERE IS NO DRINKS MENU as such but a selection of drinks as long as your arm. Whisky and bourbon are plentiful. The beer selection is boutique, too, with some pilseners, boutique one-offs from Victoria, Newcastle Brown, Samuel Adams Boston Lager and tinnies of Coopers Lager kept in an icy slush behind the bar.

Request a cocktail and it will be made for you, or the bartenders will happily rattle off a list of specialities. The whisky sour (whisky, lemon juice, bitters, sugar syrup, egg whites, house-cured cherries, $17) is a superb take on one of the world's oldest cocktails - frothy, smooth and generously strong - as is the tangy mint julep (a house mint-julep mix of mint-infused sugar syrup, Wild Turkey whiskey, crushed ice and mint, $17).

The mexicola (blanco tequila, lime juice, tabasco, coke, salt, $17) is a little rougher on the throat with a big hit of tequila but if you ain't a big drinker then there's not much for you to see here. Shady Pines can't help if you're hungry but they can slap a bowl of peanuts down on the table.

THE BAR IS A SERIOUS BAR. It's long, sumptuously dark and filled with stools that beckon for long, seated sessions. It's the kind where you can come on your own, chat to your bartender and tell him your life story, says the chap next to us, who is doing just that. Give him the peanuts and he's a walking cliche.

The whole bar is a cliche right out of Death Rides a Horse - the "wanted dead or alive" posters, the sepia photographs of moustachioed publicans, the good ol' fashioned drinkin' - only we're in Australia. In Darlinghurst.

If there wasn't such a generous crowd, this room would lose much of its cheer, so be sure to come with good company and your drinkin' boots on.

YOU'LL LOVE IT if most small bars are a tad quiet for you.
YOU'LL HATE IT if you think themed venues are too kitsch.
GO FOR a whisky sour, a bowl o' peanuts and some hoo-ha-ing.
IT'LL COST YOU cocktails $17, beers $6-$10, whisky $7-$15, peanuts on the house.

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