This week on Overproof, Sarah sits down with Lachlan Gunner — distiller at Storytellers Distillery, owner of Trap Cocktail Bar, and founder of Master Bartending — all based in Adelaide, Australia.

Lachie's path into hospitality started with mopping floors as a patisserie assistant before he found his way behind the bar. A failed bottle cocktail business at 20, a stint slinging espresso martinis in a high-volume Oxford Street nightclub, and a COVID-era move back to Adelaide eventually led him to answer a distiller job ad — and walk out as a business partner. From there came Trap, a 15-seat cocktail bar he opened on the budget of a house deposit, doing almost all the fit-out himself.

The conversation covers the real economics of opening small — rent-free periods, insurance claims, and the hard call of cutting staff hours to survive — alongside the emotional pull that drives people to open venues in the first place. Lachie also unpacks his years chasing cocktail competitions around the world, and how that obsession led him to build Master Bartending: a platform designed to turn competitive bartending into something closer to a real sport, complete with a chess-style ranking system.

Along the way: a warehouse fire that struck the distillery twice in two weeks, the wildest night he's ever been in the weeds, and the mentality shift on a plane to Sydney that changed how he competes for good.

Find Sarah: https://www.instagram.com/overproofff/

Lachlans Socials: https://www.instagram.com/lachiegunner/

Trap Bar: https://www.instagram.com/trap.adl/

Storytellers Distillery: https://www.instagram.com/storytellersdistillery/

Master Bartending: https://www.instagram.com/master.bartending/