Topless bar: artist and cook get strong liquor (6)

'strong liquor' is the definition.
'arrack' can be an answer for 'liquor' (arrack is a kind of liquor). I am not certain of the 'strong' bit.

'topless bar artist and cook' is the wordplay.
'topless' means to remove the first letter.
'artist' becomes 'ra' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'cook' becomes 'ck' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'bar' with its initial letter taken away is 'ar'.
'ar'+'ra'+'ck'='ARRACK'

'get' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?