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Water of Life – Milton Rum and Mad Monkey Distillery

Rum has a long and at times chequered history reaching back more than six hundred years to the times dominated by Colonialism, where it did not only serve to make pirates drunk but as a means for trade.

Fast forward to the present day and the renaissance that the distillation from sugarcane by-products, i.e. molasses, enjoys, sees it being produced and proffered in artisanal ways

Given that climate and soil, in other words territory, have a tangible impact on the way molasses taste, provenance is given another dimension with rum and is essentially just one of the many variables that contribute to the taste of the final product.

Rum has not exactly enjoyed a prominent profile in this series, which shall change going forward and one of the first features in that regard will zero in on a spiced variants.

Milton Rum Distillery started out their operations under their trademark Eastern Koel bird logo with the objective to honour traditional methods yet infuse the rum scene with their own idiosyncratic approach. Based in an urban environment, the aforementioned is accomplished by marrying the benefits of state-of-the-art technology with tried and tested methods.

My first exposure to Milton Rum was via their Spiced Cane Spirit – an interesting expression as for its creation, vapour infusion methods were used, which are traditionally known from being employed by gin distillers.

What tickles the nostrils catapults one instantaneously to the Christmas period and gives an adequate impression of what will materialize on the palate, i.e. a tour de force of five spices and floral nuances, resting on a backbone of citrussy myrtle highlights.  

With an ABV of 42%, this is an extremely sippable and more-ish craft rum is a fantastic introduction to how Milton Rum channels its alchemy and I look forward to their future creations.

Let’s head to South Australia, shall we?

Having been incepted in 2018, Mad Monkey Distillery is the state’s first distillery dedicated exclusively to channelling its alchemy in the art of open fermentations and sourcing their special yeast strains to infuse the Australian spirits landscape with their idiosyncratic take on Caribbean libations.

Harnessing the South Australian seasonal climate and with their DNA currently comprised of three separate cane spirit product lines. Mad Monkey uses the by-product of crystal sugar production, i.e. molasses, sourced from sugar mills in New South Wales and the quality of its emissions sets the expectations high for the launch of their certified rum line, which is currently maturing in their bond store.

What I like about Mad Monkey is their commitment to transparency, which manifests itself e.g. in meticulously detailing where their ingredients are sourced from and how they go about their craft along with the tenet to aim for sustainability in the treatment of the resources used.

My first exposure to Mad Monkey was through their Ubhal Bakte expression – quite a telling name once the Gaelic moniker is translated into “baked apple”.

As the name suggests, rich, naturally sweet cider and apple flavours are accentuated by nutty highlights, delicately set against a backdrop of spiciness and deliciously calibrated smoke.  Given my preference for smoky whiskies, I was sold straight away and found it to be a wonderfully sippable aperitif.

Flora is Mad Monkey’s ode to the Australian bush with local botanicals taking centre stage in form intensely aromatic eucalyptus married with  interesting nuances like marjoram and meadowsweet.

Saccharum could be considered Mad Monkey’s core expression as the name hints at, with it being a reference to sugar cane. This young cane spirit is as pure as they come, with flavours being exclusively derived from the distillation process and fermentation.

A borderline ideal expression to illustrate the deconstruction of rum, showcasing what can be achieved with a stripped down list of ingredients.

On the nose there is silage, floral, fruity and vegetal aromas. What then materializes on the palate takes things to the next level as things get delicately spicy, flanked by minty, sweet liquorice flavours and fruity peppery overtones.

The mid-length finish marries the best of the aforementioned flavours with the addition of the faintest salty notes and a nice apple based acidity.

Given the quality of what I have been able to taste so far, anyone remotely into rum should be psyched about Mad Monkey’s rum.

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images from company websites

The Formative Years - Kill Rock Stars 

It would have been around 1992 that I first came about a new label that seemed to have its focus firmly set on releasing its friends’ records and the underground scene centred around Olympia, Washington. It did not take long for the label, its credo and overall outlook and aesthetic to manifest via having a tangible impact on underground music at large.

If you e.g. look at their compilation Kill Rock Stars, it gives you an indication of how much of a trailblazer the label was, featuring bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Unwound, Nirvana, Mecca Normal, Heavens to Betsy, The Nation of Ulysses, and the Melvins as early as 1991.

The compilation not only had tender singer-songwriters on it but partly captured the spirit of what the genre “grunge” was to become yet was deliberately antithetical to it.

The fact that the covers were hand-made and the overall approach informed by a stern DIY ethic only added to the appeal.

Never limited to particular musical styles, Kill Rock Stars exposed me to beatnik punk, thoughtful and moody spoken word releases, Elliott Smith’s pained and gritty first full length, acts like the fantastic Mary Lou Lord and bands like Sleater Kinney.

My infatuation with KRS lasted only for three to four years up until around 1995 when most of the key bands on the label’s roster split up, but it left an indelible mark in how my interest in literate, polemic women fronted underground music and its meaningful tenets has been shaped.

With its underlying intellectuality, political mindedness, willingness to experiment and sensitivity, it was a door opener for many voices and served as a platform that occupies a unique position in the label landscape to this day with releases that thirty years on still reverberate with the same vibrancy and vigour.

Joseph Beuys: Plakate. Posters

Prestel Publishing

In the realm of art, Joseph Beuys was active in a range of disciplines from sculpting, performance, activist and installation art via graphics to him lecturing about art theory in an educational context, with his emissions often being interpreted to be of controversial nature. Beuys himself perceived his oeuvre to resemble a roadmap for the improvement of the human experience at large – an approach and philosophy that is specifically represented in his poster art, which Prestel Publishing’s tome on the matter focusses on.

The carefully curated and opulently illustrated compilation of Beuys’ poster art sheds light on how he shaped his tenet to subversively contribute to the change of Western culture and its implications with the ultimate aim to arrive in a place dominated by a peaceful, democratic and creative outlook.

What pervades the posters and constitutes the common denominator is Beuys’ idiosyncratic way of aligning life and art inextricably along with the notion that art should be a democratic endeavour and that everyone is an artist.

While his early posters focus on the announcement of his endeavours, the book shows the evolution to posters becoming a vehicle for Beuys to communicate his political and philosophical viewpoints, at times aligned with political parties he was associated with.

With its full page illustrations and accompanying commentary and contextualised essays, the book expertly exemplifies the influence Beuys exerted on the post-war artworld at large.

Thus Let Us Drink Beer – Little Bang and Wayward Brewing

Ah, finally – been thoroughly enjoying Little Bang’s exquisite beers over the years and it was high time that an instalment of our series was to be dedicated to how their channel their alchemy.

Incepted in 2014, the founders transitioned from their pedigree in video game development to trying their hand at brewing, which saw them initially experiment repurposed wine making gear. The past seven years have seen the evolution from Little Bang being a small backyard operation to one of the finest breweries on terra australis. 

My first exposure to Little Bang Brewery was via their Naked Objector, which is an example par excellence for not only Little Bang’s approach when it comes to the nomenclature of their beers, but a fantastic take on a delicately bitter and dank West Coast IPA, with nuanced citrussy and tropical highlights.

An interesting one is their Ira expression, which is essentially a hybrid between an IPA and a Red Ale, marrying the best of both worlds and adding chocolatey, toffee flavours to what I love about IPAs, i.e. danky hoppiness.

However, my favourite of Little Bang’s expressions that I have had the fortune to try must be the Road Tripper, a huge double West Coast IPA, the character of which embodies everything I love about resinous IPAs.

Upon approach, what materializes on the nostrils is an overload of hoppiness, which on the palate is accentuated by orangey, fruity, yeasty notes that are firmly rooted in a biscuity maltiness. With a finish that culminates in a crescendo of dry bitterness, it makes it one of my new favourite go-to brews when it comes to choosing a boilermaker component for a peaty Islay whisky.

Given that as much thought must have gone into the artwork and overall aesthetic that adorns the can and the overall effort made to make it an appealing product, the Road Tripper captures the DNA of why Little Bang is one of my favourite Australian breweries.

Let’s pivot to one of our favourite Sydney breweries…

Wayward Brewing has done it again, which at this stage should be come as surprise as with their limited releases, they have been consistently raising the bar and pushing boundaries no matter how exotic it sounds on paper upon approach.

An example par excellence is Sourade: a Blueberry Gose with a telling name as it has been inspired by, what for it – sports drinks.

In essence, Sourade with its light, blueberry, slightly salty and sour flavour profile paired with the fact that it is packed with electrolytes, it proves to be  the ideal brew to bounce back from a night of debauchery/

Based on one of the lightest malt bases around, i.e. the Heidelberg variant, mixed with Australian wheat. After fermentation and stripping away its colour by employing the services of a centrifuge and carbon filtration system, natural blue food colouring that is both PH and temperature stable was added to achieve a shade of electric blue that would make the Smurfs jealous.

Another limited new Wayward release was created to accommodate the colder months of the year, i.e. a coffee and coconut stour going under the moniker of Island Life.

Island Life sees Wayward Brewing team up with St. Dreux Coffee Roasters, who provided the brewery with single origin, dark roasted Sumatran beans.

The result is a well-calibrated melange of dark chocolatey toffee and burnt caramel  flavours sitting against a backdrop of nuanced coconut highlights and while the integration of coffee into beer can be a hit and miss at times, the way Wayward used espresso flavours is superb as it perfectly complements and enhances the stout.

Clocking in at 7% ABV, this stout variant is on the lighter, sweeter and smoother end of the spectrum.

Now, the next one intrigued me with the announcement that “it's barely a wine, but it is a barley wine.”

What you get with this extremely limited release is quite hand full based on the production method that is not dissimilar to reducing a stock while cooking with a three-hour long boil – a malt-forward  (think Golden Promise and English Chocolate malt variants) English-style barley wine that has been aged for a month in American Oak, which aids in rounding out its edge.

Packing close to 12% ABV, Wayward’s newest baby turns the dial not only in terms of alcohol content, but especially when it comes to flavours, with candied apples, dark chocolate nuances and caramel taking over, resting on an oaky fundament.

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imagse from company websites

Water of Life – Kiwi Spirits’ Watui Whiskey and Laceys Hill Gin

While New Zealand has not exactly been overrepresented in this series, I have yet to come across a distillery from across the pond that does not blow my mind with new, never done before ways of creating exciting whiskey variations.

Case in point: Kiwi Spirits Distillery, a family-owned entity focusing their efforts on the creation of great tastes and handcrafting their drops from homegrown ingredients. With their family history deeply engrained in decades of distilling excellence, their specialty lies in utilizing what the Golden Bay region has to offer – an area they use for the cultivation of their own orchards and gardens to produce the ingredients that serves as the foundation for their idiosyncratic experimental approach.

An example par excellence for Kiwi Spirits’ accomplishments in the more experimental realm of spirits creation is their unique Waitui Whiskey.

Following the aged, tested and tried recipes that have been refined by monasteries and the monks inhabitating them, the honey character is imbued to the spirit after a maturation period of eight years spent in Manuka honey mead barrels, the result is an idiosyncratic tour de force in a flavourful, small batch honey New Zealand malted barley whiskey.

Needless to say, the result is a way to easy to drink, more-ish and finely balanced drop based on the water of the local Te Waikoropupu.

On the nose, a subtle smokiness punctures dominant manuka honey and butterscotch notes, which rest on a backbone of oak maltiness. What then excites the palate is a delightful manuka warming honey flavoured, woody nuttiness that inspires one to chew on the drop.

A definitely unique expression that hits the spot in so many places that it makes me very curious to try Kiwi Spirits’ other spirits, which curiously not only include gins and liqueurs but a blue agave tequilana spirit.

Once travel restrictions allow, a visit to Kiwi Spirits’ distillery will become mandatory.

Let’s revert to gin and the North-Eastern region of terra australis:

Laceys Hill Distilling Co. is based not too far from Brisbane, Queensland, an area that proves to be fertile ground when it comes to new, promising distilleries.

Artisanal and handcrafted in nature, ever since its inception in 2018, Lacey’s Hill has been dedicated to provenance and incorporating the local flavours the Laceys Creek area provides in an authentic manner, specifically the native botanicals.

Being in control of each facet of the distillation process is an integral part of Laceys Hill approach, which starts with the fermentation and production of their own base spirit and being at the micro end of the distillery spectrum, they ensure that each of the limited batches they take to markets meets their self-imposed high quality standards.

My first exposure to Laceys Hills was via their award winning Lemon Myrtle Dry gin – quite a telling name as it is made from lemon myrtle grown on their own property.

With a mouthfeel that gives creaminess a new dimension, with this expression Laceys Hill’s focus is firmly set on traditional clean gins and with the excellence they achieve, a myriad of complex and subtle flavour nuances are to be explored. A nice entry point to their portfolio.

The Moreton Sunrise gin is another expression, which is an ode to the Moreton Bay area, with local fig berries and rose petals used in it resulting in a nice, nuanceful floral bouquet of flavours.

The fact that it is visually appealing when to colour changes from blue to pink due to the infusion with butterfly pea flower once tonic is added, only contributes to the appealing of this light yet flavourful drop.

Given the quality of Laceys Hill’s gin expressions, I can only hope that we will see them venture into whiskey territory soon.

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images from company websites