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Water of Life – W + A

The world of whisky is a varied one with a myriad of offerings that cater to tastes and preferences of all kinds. Once you determine your favourite drops and delve a bit into the rabbit holes flooded by the water of life, finding out the constituents of your favourites and why you find them appealing, gates to new microcosms open and things get both even more interesting but can also get overwhelming.

Given the lucrative nature of the spirits industry, there is no shortage of outlets that at least on the surface cater to your every whim, which is nice, however, the ones that are fuelled by a sincere dedication and burning passion to not only offer what you already know but are intrinsically motivated to take you on a journey of discovery are few and rare between.

Whisky and Alement is one of those.

From a distance, it might look like an ordinary whisky bar, however, the connoisseur will find out fairly quickly that there is much more to it than meets the eye. Having become a fixture not merely on the firmament of the Melbourne bar scene, but one of the prime locations nationally and a destination for international whisky aficionados alike, the core of W + A’s operations is based on a menu of over one thousands whiskies that not only cover all nuances of mainstream offerings but specifically put a focus on independent bottlings, which much to my delight are paired with a curated list of craft beers and cocktails.

What might sound like an elitist affair, could not be further from the truth as the attention to detail and care for their customers will see you in good hands, no matter if you are a novice looking for a bit of guidance or a luminary looking to indulge in a dram of a drop that has long disappeared from the shelves of other bars.

Affected by the malaise of COVID-19, the second wave of which is currently still ravaging Victoria and forced the state into a stage four lockdown, W + A’s efforts to transition operations to their online shop and virtual tastings has proved to be very successful to keep things going and enabled remote whisky aficionados to gain access to drops that would normally only be available via a visit to the physical bar.

Needless to see that especially the more refined distilleries form a conga line to not only team up with W + A for tastings but also for launches of their new and rare expressions.

An example par excellence is the virtual Yoichi Launch extravaganza, designed to celebrate the Australia launch of the new limited-edition release from the Nikka Distillery, i.e. the Nikka Yoichi Apple Brandy Wood Finish.

The nature of the virtual tasting allows for brand ambassadors and distillers to guide the tastings, which in this case is a celebration of the fruits of a love affair between the founders Masataka Taketsuru and Jessie Roberta Cowen, whose nuptial alliance left an imprint on the whisky industry at large, specifically Cowen’s preference for apples to which the Nikka Yoichi Apple Brandy Wood Finish is a tribute. Following its initial maturation, this limited-edition single malt undergoes a further six-month long finish in casks that formerly held apple brandy for over twenty-five years.

Apart from virtual tastings like the aforementioned, W + A has been working directly with distilleries and independent bottlers to release its own exclusive expressions, which are not available in 30ml juice bags for mail-order, priced so it does not break the bank and allows you to sample fantastic drops at home.

I cannot wait for travel restrictions to be eased to visit and experience W + A myself in the third dimension.

Thus Let Us Drink Beer – 3 Ravens Special editions

The story and evolution of 3 Ravens sound familiar: Having emerged from a microbrewery, the emissions were received well by the local community, demand outstripped the supply of their mainly European expressions and things started to be built up to a commercial scale.

Given the relatively early start date – at least compared to other Australian craft breweries – 3 Ravens is already firmly established in the brewing scene yet their evolution did not go at the expense of creativity and experimentation. I have yet to try their barrel-aged smoked beers, but their special range was what caught my attention straight away.

Following the brewery’s revamping and modifications pertaining to ownership, 3 Ravens returned stronger than ever with their core portfolio still intact but a range of new brews, some of which quickly morphed from being part of experimental limited series to becoming staples and lapped up and lauded by beer aficionados.

Recent releases include mixed fermentation, beer-wine hybrid and fruited beers and while some of their approaches sound like the outcome could be in novelty territory, the opposite is the case with their idiosyncratic approach to brewing.

Case in point: 3 Ravens 55, named after its ABV and originally released on their fifth birthday, is a pale ale that packs a punch and traverses between the coordinates of stone fruitiness, piny hoppyness and the dominant toasty grain influence in the most wonderful manner, with spicy highlights and a grounding bitterness.

Being an IPA man, the Passion Juicy New English Pale Ale series is one of my favourite out of 3 Ravens’ portfolio: While the foundation of the series remains constant, i.e. a melange of Amarillo, Galaxy, Strata and resinous Zappa hops with passionfruit juice added for good measure and the trademark pulp texture, nuances are changed with each release with the current one scoring high in the tangy, cereal region.

Now, entering wine territory when it comes to brewing might sound like taking things too far, however, as with all things 3 Ravens, not in this case:

The Heathcote Yellow Muscat comes in an interesting looking clear glass bottle and has a grocery long list of ingredients. Essentially, the unicorn is a hybrid of four different aged beers, which has been mixed with Yellow Muscat wine grape skins to add fermented sugar, before it was filtered and filled into bottled to referment.

Sounds like a handful and a bit overwhelming? Sure is.

Now, the flavour profile is….hard to fathom and one is tempted to utilise a flow chart to accommodate all the different territories that are covered. We are talking chocolate, fruits, spices, cider notes, bitterness, tangy under- and overtones, et cetera, et cetera. While this might sound like a mish mash, the beautiful thing is that each flavour nuance is distinct, yet it also makes sense in the interplay with all the other seemingly unrelated ones.

A tour de force in terms of flavours and one that cements 3 Ravens’ status as master brewers.

Cult Status

As Phillip Seymour Hoffman once quipped, you can view anything as a “cult” and some might claim that a “cult” is a religion with no political power, or is it?

Media luminary Tim Duggan takes us on an insightful journey down the rabbit hole of what constitutes a “cult” company and analysis what exactly constitutes and contributes to its status. Especially during current COVID-19 times, the strong identification a customer has with a company is more important than ever and companies emerging in this day and age, seem to have those evolving relationships firmly on their radar.

Duggan breaks the achievement of cult status down into common denominators comprised of seven dedicated steps / chapters, with each being embedded into anecdotes and framed with interviews, from which Duggan extracts and exemplifies fundamental learnings that the reader is tasked to implement in their respective business or project.

While it is interesting to see that to some extent there is a formula to achieving cult status, Duggan also does not miss to point out that there is a “je ne sais quoi” factor, which amplifies what a charismatic leader can achieves, part of which can be attributed to leadership emanating from the middle, not the front or back, i.e. the community a community has managed to build feels included and related to. The proof is in the pudding as the phenomenon explains why e.g. a lot of crowdfunded start-ups manage to often find an enthusiastic array of investors that become part of the journey and thereby a resource of liquidity that can be tapped into whenever needed.

An interesting tome no matter if you are trying your hand as an entrepreneur looking for guidance  in a principled and creative manner or if your viewpoint is that of a consumer.

We're All Going To Die

Stefen Hunt

The power of letting go can be immensely liberating and what greater fear could be let go off than the inevitability of death?

Instead of indulging in trivial distractions, Stefen Hunt has made the credo and personal epiphany “We’re All Going to Die” his maxim when it comes to the mundane trials that determine our lives and often cause anxiety and dread – an outlook that be empowering as it can help to reshape your perspective on life.

Based on a poem as the genesis and cataclysm for this book, Stefen Hunt’s book explores and tackles the deciphering the meaning of life from a child’s viewpoint. Drawing and illustrations accompany the eloquent prose, which puts the reader at their centre as they prompt questions to carefully question things one perceives to be set in stone, with the omnipresent and underlying question if you’d live your life in the same way if you knew the reaper was going to come a-knockin’ tomorrow.

A life-affirming book that serves as a reminder that it can be forgiven to fear the dark, but one should not feel afraid and paralysed by the light.

Water of Life - Aberlour A'Bunadh

Speyside’s Aberlour is a much fabled about distillery – one that releases its emissions in idiosyncratic batches, which might vary a tad in terms of quality, yet have the common denominator of having the same copper-ruby appearance derived from its exclusive maturation in Spanish Oloroso sherry butts without any artificial additions and no chill-filtration. Given the aforementioned characteristics, it should not come as a surprise that their flagship expression “A’Bunadh” roughly translates to “of the origin”.

When Aberlour came up in conversation with follow aficionados, the term “sherry monster” was thrown around quite frequently, with some claiming that it coined the blueprint for the genre given its early emergence.

Needless to say that I was quite excited to finally experience the drop. After cutting off the massive trademark wax seal and upon uncorking, what tickled the nostrils was a complex conglomerate of vanilla, apples, nuts, cinnamon, spearmint, barley and oak which rest on a foundation of dominant sherry notes that pervade the aroma on all fronts.

A’Bunadh at cask strength clocks in at over 60% ABV, however, what materializes on the palate with the mouthfeel reminiscent of a good chewy cognac is not at all the spirity burning alcohol heavy assault one might expect. While the alcohol is certainly conducive to the warming effects it unveils, nuances of chocolate, vanilla, oaky malt, honey, white pepper, the sherry cask trademark “furniture polish” flavours, and raisins take turns and make each sip a lip smacking exercise in deliciousness.

What the palate promised, seamlessly transitions to the elongated finish as the drop warms the through, which riffs on the main flavours notes but adds dried fruits, berries, almonds and again heavy sherry highlights to the mix.

Aberlour A’bunadh is an expression that is rustic, earthy and an excellent whisky with sherry notes rather than what in other cases tasted like a high alcohol version of sherry and one that no serious whisky cabinet is complete without.

The Formative Years – Rocket from the Crypt

Given that it was released on Nemesis Records, I ordered the first Pitchfork album blindly and while it did not exactly blow my mind – mainly due to the rhythm section -  I liked the way the songs were written, the interesting guitar lines and vocals enough to not be deterred from checking out the debut LP that the songwriter released with his new outfit Rocket from the Crypt in the early 1990s.

 The album “Paint as a fragrance” won me over straight away with its charmingly noisy ditties, which were full of heart and soul yet still packed a punch. Learning shortly after about the fact that Rocket from the Crypt had a release on one of my favourite record labels, i.e. Pusmort records, sealed the deal for me and I started collecting whatever bore the RFTC logo.

An array of 7” releases followed (which were later on compiled and released as the “All systems go” compilation album) and eventually their second album “Circa: Now” was released, which saw RFTC refine its ballsy melange of hardcore, punk, garage and grunge with the addition of what should later on be expanded and became their trademark, i.e. the usage of a  saxophone and  mini horn section, which they used diligently to add punchiness to their already riveting riffs.

So far, so good.

With not only the underground but also a mainstream audience having caught on and given my purist juvenile delinquent absolutism, I was convinced that I was going to lose one of “my” bands with their first major label release in 1995.

However, things could have not turned out more differently. Having collected and loved almost all of their previous releases, “Scream, Dracula, Scream!” topped it all.

A near flawless juggernaut of an album that has made me smile literally every time I have listened to it. Again, RFTC skims the cream of the crop of rock, punk, soul, grunge, alternative, garage rock and pop sensibility, throws it into a blender and infuses it with their very own delicious flavour. The result is a nuanced tour de force of catchiness that grooves yet does not lack aggression. A great mix of aggression, horns, showmanship and a whole bag of fun. It is a shame that the label did not allow the album to be released as the band had intended, i.e. as a cohesive monolith of music, however, “Scream, Dracula, Scream!” progressed what had become pretty stale and standardized punk formulae to something refreshingly new and exciting by drawing on the essence and finer parts of the very styles that initially spawned the genre.

I managed to get to see them on their supporting tour a couple of times in 1996 and each incarnation was a fantastic experience as the natural charisma fuelled by the unbridled enthusiastic of front man par excellence and raconteur John Reis and his worthy constituents was only amplified by their stage antics, which included a male cheerleader, variété and designated segments for audience interaction.

What might sound cheesy on paper and an oxymoron to what was standard practice within punk and hardcore circles, totally worked as RFTC channelled their alchemy in a manner that disarmed even the most snobbish hardcore purist and their unrivalled tight delivery got everyone in attendance moving.