What is happening inside the landmark Royal George Hotel on Kyneton’s Piper Street evades easy categorisation. There’s Botanik, a darkly moody cocktail bar and a bottleshop on the upper level, specialising in “aromatised” wine (the herb and spice-flavoured fortified stuff, think amaro, vermouth, aperitif). But there’s also fragrance, jewellery, furniture, bedding, book, glassware, homeware and cocktail equipment departments, a leafy veranda that does double-duty as outdoor seating and plant shop and regular workshops exploring the fine arts of fragrance and cocktail making.

You might call it a department store with a cocktail bar attached but that doesn’t quite cover it. The Royal George seems to have its own sense of purpose, place and time. Whatever the label, the former pub’s current incarnation is wholly unique and needs to be experienced to be believed.

“It is so experiential that you really do have to be in it to get it,” says Melissa Macfarlane who owns Botanik with her partner Frank Moylan. “It’s like an old-school department store but it’s full immersion – there are things hanging from the ceiling, crazy wallpaper, floral installations and you have the opportunity to taste every one of the 150 aromatised wines we stock at a tasting station. It’s a lot. When we first opened after the pandemic we had people crying because they were so overwhelmed – but overwhelmed in a good way.”

Melissa and Frank have owned the Royal George for nearly 20 years, initially operating it as a chic version of a country town pub. But as their interests began to broaden – Melissa is an interior designer who opened the eclectic, eccentric furniture and homewares store Kabinett, now housed on the ground floor of the Royal George – they leased the pub before being drawn back in after the tenants surrendered their lease.

“We were struggling to find a way to make the pub work in a way that interested us,” says Melissa. “But then Covid struck and we had to close down and it gave us time to think and reinvent. We had the time to find a different path, one that felt authentic to us, and this is what came out of it.”

The best and most sensible way to appreciate this extraordinary place is to first head upstairs to the cocktail bar. Botanik’s beautifully staged display of amari and vermouth (alongside short, sharp collections of fine bitters, gin, rum, tequila) is like installation art. Then there’s fact of being able to taste any of the 150 exotically-labelled elixirs before buying, either at the tasting station or at the bar in the form of cocktails, deconstructed Negronis or flights of vermouth and amari, alongside excellent cheese and salumi, pate and terrines.
And Jatz crackers, obviously.

It might just be the headiness of the drinks, but the immersion idea soon makes sense. What links this all together becomes clear: plants and herbal-based aromatised wines and fragrances, cocktails and cocktail paraphernalia – carts and cabinets, glassware, stirrers, shakers – books about cocktails and dinner parties, rugs, art and furniture to adorn your house, jewellery and fragrance to do the same to your body.

It’s an adult playground, a one-stop-shop for getting indulgent entertaining right that you can explore with an expertly-made cocktail in hand. Immerse yourself.

STORY BY MICHAEL HARDEN, PHOTOS BY CHRIS TURNER

Botanik Kyneton
22 Piper Street Kyneton
Upstairs inside Kabinett.
Open 7 Days
botanik.com.au