Whisky and Alement
About ten bottles the bar has never carried before land here every week, and the whole crew tastes them and writes notes before a single one goes on the list.
Why go
Julian White and Brooke Hayman took over a cocktail room called Chez Regine and turned it into one subject, and they have been at it since 2010 (The Crafty Pint). What accumulated is the largest Scotch Malt Whisky Society collection poured anywhere in Australia, alongside independent bottlings and casks the bar sources direct (venue). The Society shelf matters because those are single-cask, cask-strength bottlings released under a number rather than a distillery name, so ordering one means trusting the person behind the bar. That is the whole design. There are no beer taps in the building, so beer arrives in cans and bottles and the staff build boilermakers around whatever you are drinking (The Crafty Pint). The education side is a working programme: weekly classes split by country, private two-hour tastings, and an importing arm called The Independent Whisky Company.
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever came in this week. Ask for a Society bottling and let them choose the number. Take the boilermaker they suggest rather than picking your own beer.
- Avoid: arriving with a big group. The venue takes no table bookings at all, and the room is small. It also shuts on every public holiday.
What locals & experts say
- Icons of Whisky Rest of World 2023, the awards run by Whisky Magazine and announced in London on 2 February 2023: Bar of the Year went to Whisky & Alement, and Bar Manager of the Year to Lachlan Watt. Kavalan Whisky Bar in Taiwan was Highly Commended in the same category.3
- The Crafty Pint, the national beer and bar title, on why it works:
just as central to Whisky and Alement's success is the staff, balancing an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things whisky (and whiskey) with the ability to share their passion with aficionados and newcomers alike.
2 - Alexandra Zinghini, Australian Bartender (April 2025), placing it among the country's ten best whisky bars:
Melbourne's respected whisky bar, Whisky and Alement, is both a whisky den and education hub.
Her roundup is a compiled list rather than her own verdict, so it counts as coverage.4 - The counterweight, from the same piece:
The Elysian took out top honours in the 2024 Bar Awards, being crowned Whisky Bar of the Year.
Melbourne's most recent trade title for a whisky bar went across town.4 - No chef vote. All 74 industry picks from 44 Melbourne chefs and writers were checked on 1 August 2026 and none names this bar. The rooms the industry names are Caretaker's Cottage, Apollo Inn, Bar Bellamy, Marion, Auterra and Hands Down.
Good to know
- Where: 270 Russell Street, in the CBD, about a 20-minute walk from MCEC or a tram down Collins.
- Timing: Tuesday to Saturday 4pm to 1am, Sunday and Monday 4pm to 10pm, closed every public holiday.
- Booking: walk-in. The bar takes no table bookings, and that is the house policy.
- Food: bar snacks only. Eat first.
- Classes: weekly masterclasses split by country, and private two-hour tastings in a room of your own.
- Hygiene: Victoria publishes no consumer-facing hygiene rating, so there is no Australian equivalent of an FSA score to record here, in either direction.
Verdict
should-visit — Sixteen years of one idea, executed at a level the international award body recognized: Icons of Whisky named it Rest of World Bar of the Year in 2023 and gave Lachlan Watt Bar Manager of the Year in the same round. The craft here is depth rather than rotation, and the number that proves it is the intake, around ten bottles a week the bar has never carried, tasted and written up by the whole crew before they go on the list. Australia's largest Scotch Malt Whisky Society pour sits behind that, plus an importing arm and a weekly masterclass programme, which is capital and labor spent on the subject rather than on the room. It holds at should-visit rather than must-visit for two reasons stated plainly: no bylined critic we can reach has assessed the pour, and the trade's most recent Melbourne whisky-bar title went to The Elysian at the 2024 Bar Awards. Go for the conversation at the bar, not for a table, because there are no table bookings.