Join us at The Rum Diary Bar, where the palm trees are swaying and so are the customers, where there are 125 different rums to try, and all the time in the world to do it. Fitzroy, Melbourne, is the place recalling the sun-drenched, brow-moistened exploits of Hunter S Thompson’s thirsty journalist, but this is not a theme bar filled with Thompsonalia, but a temple to fermented sugarcane of every type imaginable, and some beyond.

Clear some time in your own diaries and settle in for an education on all things rum. Spicy, sweet, thick and light, white and dark, you name it, there’s something to tempt every taste, and the list of cocktails has all he angles covered. The aged Victorian exterior of the Brunswick Street bar matches perfectly with the colonial associations of the drink, and there are comforting vintage touches inside too. If you get peckish, we hear good things about the cheeseboard, which matches each different type of dairy with a corresponding rum. Take my advice: indulge in a barrel-aged Negroni. You won’t be disappointed.