Knockoffs with… NOLA co-founders Oliver Brown and Josh Talbot
This week, CityMag tries some very special whiskies with the co-founders of East End staple NOLA. NOLA was at the vanguard of the city’s small bar licence openings and this weekend turns ten.
It’s a big year of celebrations across Adelaide as the beneficiaries of mid-2010s legislation permitting the operation of small bars turn 10.
An East End favourite, NOLA, is one of them. The small bar, inspired by New Orleans whisky and fried chicken culture, was the first real attempt from co-founders Oliver Brown and Josh Talbot to open a serious venue.
They’ve since gone on to build a veritable hospitality empire via their outfit The Big Easy Group. That company now operates Anchovy Bandit, Bottega Bantido, The Stag, Bowden Brewing, Masa Kitchen, La Louisiane and – most recently – Tarantino’s.
Having captured a valuable corner of the East End, starting with NOLA before taking over The Stag and then Tarantino’s, the co-founders sat down to reminisce on the past ten years over some of their favourite whiskies.
DS: Whisky is a huge part of NOLA. Why did you want to centre a bar around it?
OB: When we opened NOLA we were just going to be a beer bar, and we almost signed a lease where Sunny’s Pizza is. Then we found this property. It was just sitting here vacant, undeveloped. And we were like ‘that’s perfect’. We were 23 or 24 at the time and didn’t even really know where to start. While we were looking around for a site, I went to New Orleans with my partner at the time and I loved it. I loved the dark spirit culture, especially the bourbon culture. That’s where the whisky element and the New Orleans element came from. Now, we’ve taken inspiration through them for all our venues, and take that to a point without being tacky.
JT: I wanted it to be a brewery before that – that’s what I wanted!
Whisky #1 is served: a Tasmanian LARK Distillery x NOLA limited release.
DS: I’m not a huge whisky guy… I don’t mind it, but I don’t usually drink it straight.
JT: One trick, when you’re sniffing it, chuck your nose there and breathe in through your mouth, rather than taking it all in through your nose.
OB: If you can’t smell it, move a little bit closer. But don’t put your nose in it, you’ll just burn your face.
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DS: So you had aspirations for brewing?
OB: Half of the team that were really into brewing went and opened Bowden Brewing.
JT: So we hit our dream.
DS: So you’ve taken over pretty much this whole corner of the East End.
OB: Which is crazy, when you think about it.
JT: At that time we weren’t saying no to stuff. We didn’t have kids or anything.
OB: And it’s in such a good spot, the whole building is in such a good space. We’re stoked with it.
JT: We just made it work. It definitely fluctuates a lot. Having Fringe this side of town is amazing.
DS: It was a very different hospitality environment 10 years ago. What changed over that period and do you reckon you’ve had a finger in changing the landscape?
JT: We were one of the first to have a bunch of independent taps here, to give those smaller brewers a chance to get on. Ten years ago, everything was contracted. Now it’s kind of gone full circle, it’s just hard to get on tap. I’m pretty proud of keeping all 16 here fully independent and giving local guys and smaller brewers a chance to be on something.
OB: We’ve never broken it. Always been independent on tap always here, which is pretty cool. A lot of those moralistic foundations we chose early on we stuck with: the independent beers, supporting live musicians, local produce… We’ve always kept to that. I think people care about that stuff a little less than they did 10 years ago because it was novel, and the small bar licence had only been around for 18 months at the time. It opened the consumers’ eyes up to quality. Then there was COVID, then post-COVID and cost-of-living pressures. There’s a lot of consolidation in the market and people are a bit more price-conscious than they were before.
DS: Oli, this isn’t your first venue – you had something on Grenfell Street?
OB: Yeah, Red Trousers – a little wine bar I built out of pallets with a friend of mine, straight out of uni for four months during Fringe. It’s where I met JT. I didn’t know any of the partners of NOLA before.
Whisky #2 is served: a South Australian Cut Hill and NOLA collaboration from 2022 (48 per cent ABV)
OB: 48… not too bad. A little smokiness in there.
JT: All the collabs got smoke in them. We’re very peat driven.
DS: You said COVID was the road bump, but was it always smooth sailing?
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OB: I found this place was very busy from the start, but we just had no idea what we were doing. I’ve still never worked full-time for anyone but myself. We had very little experience. We literally argued with our chef about when we were opening about if we needed to buy plates and if he needed shelves. We had no shelves… We were like ‘do you need more pans? Only cook one thing at a time. Use it, wash it.’ We had no money, literally no money at all.
JT: The wood in here was all donated to us by a winemaker at Penfolds. These were all old Penfolds vats made of jarrah just sitting in the shed. When we were cutting them, you could just smell the red wine. Lucky we were busy from the start, because we definitely overspent by a long way in the fitout.
OB: We ran out of money. We all got personal credit cards and maxed them all out before we opened.
DS: What have you taken from the experience of running NOLA to your other venues?
JT: Having the right people in the right roles makes all the difference. Our opening team, a lot of them are still with us which is very incredible.
OB: We learned very quickly that you can’t be everywhere, and the only solution to not being everywhere is to get people to be your eyes and ears when you’re not there. I think you can do one venue really well. I think three venues is the valley of death, because you can’t be anywhere long enough to have a meaningful impact and you can’t afford to pay for head office or resources or skills or experience.
Whisky #3 is served: ‘Highwayman’, a peated, single-malt whisky from Byron Bay. (55 per cent ABV).
OJ: When we opened we had the biggest whisky selection in Adelaide at the time, and we opened with 40 bottles. Now we have like 400. The purchasing of whiskies had nothing to do with any data. We were excited by stuff we thought was cool, interesting.
JT: I look at photos of when we first opened and it looked so empty behind the bar. It’s very strange.
DS: We’ll close things out with some rapid-fire questions. Where’s your favourite place to get a drink – not a Big Easy Group venue.
OJ: Bar Nowhere. (Hutt St) It’s casual and comfortable.
JT: I really like the Scenic Hotel. A bloody lovely spot to have a pint.
DS: What’s your favourite thing on the NOLA menu?
OJ: I like the chicken.
JT: I’ve always loved the gumbo and jambalaya that we have, because they’re so quintessentially that Cajun Creole cuisine.
DS: Who is someone in the Adelaide hospitality industry who you madly respect?
OJ: I think Sean Howard from Gonzo does a sweet job. Also Jamie Bucirde as well, everything she does for hospitality. She’s a weapon.
JT: My head went straight to Sean, and then Ashlee Hopkins as well. She’s also a gun, she makes cool stuff. It’s hard to make a career in ceramics and to be so well known in the space is probably very hard. You don’t really name-drop too many ceramicists, do you?
NOLA will celebrate its tenth birthday on Saturday, November 22, with live tunes from Aiden ‘Jazzy’ Jones, flash tattooists, and collab beer launches. Connect with NOLA on Instagram for more information.
