How Cara Devine built a YouTube cocktail channel to over 150,000 subscribers

Last weekend we held the first Boothby Best bars Victoria awards, and a good times party for 130 of the industry’s best and brightest bar owners and bartenders. It was at The Lincoln, and we handed out a few awards on the night as well as counting down the top 50 bars in Victoria. Caretaker’s Cottage were on hand to mix the drinks for the night with a takeover — it was incredible, an amazing turnout, and a lot of fun. <br />One of the awards we did hand out on the night was the Person of the Year presented by Orlando. The winner was Cara Devine. Cara is a bartender and bar manager at Bomba in Melbourne, but you might know her as the host of Behind the Bar with Cara Devine, on YouTube, where she has over 150,000 subscribers, or as Bartender magazine’s Melbourne-based writer. I do believe however that Boothby haas the honour of publishing her first before she was picked up by Big Trade Media, so I’m pretty happy about that. She is one of my favourite writers to read when it comes to the Australian bar world, she’s an excellent communicator and demystifies the world of cocktails and spirits better than most, and you can read that in her book on cocktails, Strong, Sweet, & Bitter. She’s a great voice for the industry, and I guess that’s why a panel of more than 100 Victorian bartenders, bar owners, and bartendery types voted her to win the Person of the Year presented by Orlando wines. This episode is one I recorded with Cara back in July 2022 when the podcast was just a few months old — in it Cara talks about writing, how and why she got started on YouTube, what works on YouTube, and more. Congratulations again for the win, thank you to Orlando for sponsoring the award.