Rattlers Saloon opens with country cocktails in Mornington
A Mornington Peninsula team known for Deadwood Dromana opens a two-level saloon on Main Street, with 150 whiskies and a Western-inspired cocktail list.
Rattlers Saloon has opened on Main Street in Mornington, the latest venue from the team behind Deadwood Dromana on Victoria's coast.
Liam Watt, Dan Green and Lino Scidone run the new bar at 39 Main Street. The site spans two levels: a ground-floor saloon and an upstairs room they call the Band Room, plus a balcony and footpath seating along the main strip.
More than 150 whiskies line the back bar. Watt and Green, who also set the drinks list at Deadwood Dromana on the Mornington Peninsula, can name most of the bottles blind, by producer and region, a habit carried over from their first venue.
More than 150 whiskies line the back bar, named blind by producer and region.
Rattlers Saloon's cocktails lean west
The list leans Western. Outlaw's Orchard mixes sage vodka with peach, orgeat and pineapple. Broken Cowboy pairs whiskey with cold-brew coffee, wattleseed liqueur and bitters. Oklahoma Smokeshow adds peated whisky and egg white to coconut rum and kaffir lime, and a frozen Jack Daniel's and Coke is next on the list.
Food follows the same brief. Head chef Jono, who has worked kitchens abroad for more than three decades, serves baby-back pork ribs with a southwest-style slaw and Cajun-spiced prawn tacos with smoked corn salsa.
Band Room hosts the late nights
Upstairs, the Band Room runs live music on Friday and Saturday nights, with Sunday sessions planned. Two-step line-dancing classes and Bottomless Bingo fill the quieter nights, alongside screenings of live sport on a wall-mounted screen.
Prices are set to build a local crowd early: two-for-one cocktails run Monday to Friday, wings are a dollar each on Wednesdays and tacos drop to 15 dollars on Thursdays. Main Street Mornington, the local traders' group, listed the bar's launch weekend as walk-in only, with no bookings taken and payment by cash or card.
Watt, Green and Scidone opened Deadwood Dromana in 2022, pairing bourbon with Southern-leaning food on the peninsula's foreshore. Rattlers carries that formula inland, onto one of Mornington's busiest retail strips, betting that whisky and a dance floor travel together.
The opening lands in a busy few weeks for Victorian drinks venues: Sydney's Opera Bar reopened under Applejack in November, and Wishbone opened in a new Melbourne tower. Rattlers aims at a different crowd, further down the coast.
The group has given no date for a formal expansion of the upstairs program beyond the current weekend schedule. For now, Main Street gets a saloon that runs on bourbon, line dancing and a steady swing between weekday specials.
