Water of Life – Whisky Company & Bruichladdich

Being a whisky aficionado on terra australis can be challenging at times, specifically when it comes to sourcing drops from the old world. With orders from overseas being subjected to extortionate taxes, it is vitally important to have a local, trusted distributor that continuous delivers the goods when it comes to expertly sourcing the best quality single malt whiskies at a competitive price.

This is where the Whisky Company comes into play.

Founded by Craig and Katherine Merson, a pair with Scottish roots and immense knowledge of whisky, they are not out there to merely  convert the uninitiated but based on your preferences, aim to assist in pointing you in the right direction and helping to find a bottle that tickles your fancy to set you on a course of discovery and global adventure.

Given Whisky Company’s love for experiences, expectations were high when a Bruichladdich Scotch Whisky Virtual Tasting Event was announced, especially since Chloe Wood was going to be involved, a never not charming luminary in the field of whisky and Islay at large, who hosted the tasting via Zoom directly from Glasgow.

With Chloe having grown up merely a few miles from Port Charlotte on the mecca of whisky, i.e. the isle of Islay in Scotland, and having been actively involved with Bruichladdich all of her professional life, there could not have been a more suitable guide.

Flanked by Bruichladdich Brand Representative Andy Buntine, who represents the distillery in Australia, we were off to an immensely engaging and fun evening with knowledge being dropped left, right and centre on history and production through to character, flavours and aromas of the Bruichladdich range, all the while accentuating the romance of the story and brand.

Starting out with the Bruichladdich’s honeyed and florally sweet Classic Laddie and the delicately peated Port Charlotte expressions, which we have covered in granular detail before, the first highlight was presented in form of the archaic Bere Barley expression: With Bere Barley having less yield and therefore more emphasis on barley flavours, it is as expected more vibrant on the nose with pears, vanilla, apples and oranges being on the forefront aroma-wise.

I love the distillate-driven mouthfeel and the chocolatey, earthy flavours, which seamlessly transition to spicy, dried fruity flavours and oaky vanilla finish with citrus reverberating. Definitely need to secure myself a bottle for the collection.

The highlight of the evening for Bruichladdich aficionados like myself was to get a taste of Port Charlotte Valinch, expressions of which are getting more and more difficult to come by.

What Bruichladdich’s head distiller Adam Hannett has channelled his alchemy in here is clocking in at over 60% ABV and what stings the nostrils is what I would described as a marriage of toffee and peat, accentuated by a biscuity and berry rich sweetness that sits against a backbone of coffee and bacon with nutty overtones peppered in. It evoked a Pavlovian response with me.

On the top of the mouth, the sweetness of the cask comes through, with sherry notes pervading black pepper, charcoal ash, coffee beans, wet soil and fruity peat flavour profiles.

The elongated finish culminates in an exquisite and warm gingery crescendo, which leaves one lusting for another dram.

An interesting factotum was to learn that Bruichladdich has started a campaign to reduce their overall carbon footprint and an initiative to send bottles out without tins, which demonstrates not only the endeavour to their commitment to sustainability.

Being a hopeless  smoke and peat head, I sneakily saved the sample of Octomore 11.1 for last.

With Bruichladdich’s yearly Octomore releases having earned a reputation as peat bombs, it was interesting to see that with the 11 series, they dialled back the phenol parts per million component a bit, which allows for other nuances to shine through in a more prominent manner , e.g.  Scottish mainland  barley flavours. An example par excellence for Bruichladdich’s emphasis on provenance and terroir.

On the nose the 11.1 convinces with not only the tested and tried peat aromas but a complex flavour profile comprised of eucalyptus, vanilla and brine.

What materializes on the palate in the most delicious oily manner are  vanilla notes unfold backed by a slight alcohol burn and accentuated by peppery, orangey and zesty highlights. Peat smoke sits in the middle  and revibrates throughout without completely taking over, which results in a delicious and dynamic profile. In essence, I’d go as far as saying that the Octomore 11 series is one of the accessible ones, especially for the uninitiated looking to work themselves into the glorious realm of Octomore.

I cannot wait for the 2021 Fèis Ìle expressions and the Octomore 12 series, which will hopefully see the light of day later this year.

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image provided

Thus Let Us Drink Beer – Young Henrys Unifier and GABS Festival

The intersections of love for music and beer is one of the focus areas that in ingrained into the DNE of Young Henrys brewery, which is not only evident in their collaborations with bands to create idiosyncratic brews but also in their on-going support of live music.

The beauty with Young Henrys is that every time one thinks they might have peaked, a new project comes about that tops their previous stellar efforts.

Case in point: Their new collaboration with Rolling Stone magazine, which sees them create a hazy pale not only inspired by but meant to be a celebration of music that made a difference in the world.

Appropriately named The Unifier, the pale ale is a tour de force in hoppy haziness and part of an initiative to saluting and appreciating the efforts of musicians that channelled their art into protesting injustice, overcoming divides and bringing people together.

While the idea and concept is noble, it sure does not hurt that the name of YH’s latest emission also unifies tropical, stone fruit, and fresh floral notes set against a backbone of malt, with highlights of rolled oats and a delicate bitterness clocking in at 19 IBU.

With a percentage of the proceeds from The Unifier going to Support Act, the Dylan Alcott Foundation, and Autism Camp Australia, doing the right and good things has seldomly been made easier and delicious.

Let’s broaden the scope a bit, shall we?

If you are remotely into craft beer and cider, the annual GABS festival is the equivalent of Easter and Christmas rolled up in one. After not being put on last year, brew aficionados have been waiting with bated breath for taps to open again.

The 2021 Sydney incarnation of the GABS festival was only minorly impaired by COVID-19 restrictions and one could not wait to roam free in a bid to savour the new emissions of most of the breweries we have previously covered as well as discover new ones.

If that was not incentive enough, GABS’ USP is that on top of their respective core ranges, breweries offer beers that have not only never been brewed before but are specifically concocted for the festival, clocking in at over one hundred exclusives variants.

Sounds like Disneyland for beer hounds? You bet it is.

Needless to say, breweries are getting creative and weird to celebrate the occasion with their new creations and it is never not a delight to get a tasting paddle the flavours of which take you to uncharted territories flavour-wise.

The proffering of the hoppy liquid deliciousness is framed by an array of carefully curated masterclasses, roving musical entertainment, panel discussions, games known from the Oktoberfest as well as a selection of spirit bars and food trucks to provide sustenance.

Standouts of this year’s GABS festival were Dainton and Akasha Brewery with their never not delightful brews, along with Green Beacon Brewing Co, who have yet to emit a subpar brew.

While I ventured to have at least a sip of the weirder offerings, my favourite variant, i.e. IPAs, were a focus area and suffice to say, I am lucky to call terra australis in that regard. I can only hope that some of the GABS creations manage to make it into the respective breweries’ regular portfolio.

The Formative Years

Mute Records

It seems like aeons ago that through my parents’ record collection I was exposed to Grace Jones’ of “Warm leatherette” – a cover version of The Normal.

The Normal was Daniel Miller’s first musical endeavour before he started a record label which was to release a steady stream of genre defining releases. Mute Records’ first release, i.e. Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschafts’ single "Kebab-Träume", was an instant classic and set the tone for what was to come.

Apart from being a home for Miller’s own projects, it was as early as 1980 that the label released the first moves of trailblazing outfits like Fad Gadget and noise pioneers like Boyd Rice’s NON.

While I have yet to come across a Mute Records release that is not at least interesting and curious, Mute Records singlehandedly changed the face of the British electronic music scene with the first release of Depeche Mode. A release that kickstarted Mute Records’ rapid expansion and a relationship that lasts until this very day.

What I have always admired about Mute Records and Daniel Miller is that he never ceased to support and mine for new experimental artists, despite growing to a veritable major label with the release of Alison Moyet and Vince Clark joining forces in 1982 with Yazoo.

A year later saw Depeche Mode release “Everything counts”  and while this release catapulted Mute Records even further towards commercial success, Miller never ceased to support underground music and secured the back catalogues of acts like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire.

The release of The Birthday Party’s final 12” in 1983 was followed by the debut single of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in the same year that Miller released an album with archive material of  Einstürzende Neubauten – bands that should cross-pollinate across releases and spawn a range of boundary pushing collaborations between bands.

A myriad of releases followed in the 1980s, of which Depeche Mode’s compilation of the band’s singles to commemorate the first five years of Mute Records is only one of many early releases that became instant classics that stand the test of time until this very day.

Mute Records continued its support of underground artists with the signing of acts like Diamanda Galas and Laibach, before Depeche Mode released the so far most successful album of the label with “Music for the Masses”.

The 1990s saw Mute Records continue their journey, cultivating the careers of its main acts while continuing to support and release underground and lesser known acts, branching out into different genres with the establishment of a myriad of sub-labels before it was acquired by EMI in 2003, with Daniel Manner remaining at the helm of the label’s endeavours.

In a bid to reinvigorate the DNA of Mute Records, Daniel Miller negotiated with EMI the re-establishment of Mute Records as an independent label in 2010, backed by EMI’s infrastructure, with the core acts siding with Miller and creating the foundation for what is still going through forty-three years after its inception.

National Gallery of Australia – Botticelli to Van Gogh

Claiming that there is an overboarding array of world class art spaces on terra australis would be a bit of a bold statement, however, the ones that have established themselves on a grander scale, can take it up with the best of them.

We have covered our favourite third space MONA and its ever evolving incarnations and reinventions numerous times, regularly cover both the excellent exhibitions at the NGV in Melbourne as well as the AGNSW in Sydney and make sure to pay a visit to GOMA whenever I am holding court in Brisbane.

The one that so far got away is The National Gallery of Australia (originally the Australian National Gallery), i.e. the national art museum of Australia and it was only for the reason that apart from hit-and-run work visits, I never spent any real time in Canberra that I could not afford to check it out first-hand.

Reason enough for a dedicated trip to the NGA to explore the institution that was originally incepted in 1910, with construction finally commencing in the early 1970s before it finally incarnated in 1982 with over twenty thousand square meters of floor space spread over three levels, housed inside a building based a raw concrete, angular brutalist architectural concept.

With the curatorial focus of the NGA’s international collection firmly set on late 19th-century and 20th-century art, the current Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London exhibition offered a welcome complementary opposite as it allowed the opportunity to feast one’s eyes on the artistic emissions of the old masters via more than sixty works ranging from portraits to landscapes, spanning a period of over five hundred years.

Being the first major exhibition since the pandemic hit, the show had been on hold for quite a while and with logistical and other obstacles to be overcome, anticipation was running high.

It was a fantastic experience to freely roam a gallery again, let alone for the fact that every room of the Botticelli to Van Gogh exhibition is paved with masterpieces, each of which demands to be savored in a dedicated manner.

Needless to say, Van Gogh’s extraordinarily luminous Sunflowers painting is the pinnacle of the exhibition, however, NGA’s thoughtful approach to curation ensures that each component imparts a vision for the respective school of art period and time as you move chronologically along, as the subject matter of the artworks gradually becomes more secular and diverse, taking welcome detours from bible scenes and religious content, which the first segment is focused on.

The order and arrangements of the paintings along with the nicely orchestrated lighting transports one into a realm inspiring a veritable emotional connection. 

After recently covering the immersive Claude Monet experience in Sydney with projections of his pieces, it was fantastic to revel in his lyrically beautiful Water-Lily Pond, which flanks Van Gogh’s Sunflowers on one side.

Experiencing the piece in the third dimension, it does not come as a surprise that what Monet pioneered was to spark what was to become an art movement in itself, i.e., Impressionism, to which the NGA dedicated an exclusive exhibition in 2019, which I unfortunately missed. I am glad though that I got to revisit Monet’s evolution and his influences through NGA’s catalogue Monet: Impression Sunrise, which in partnership with the Parisian Musée Marmottan chronicles how his artistic approach was broadened.

Apart from works by Cézanne, Degas and Renoir, which illuminate the final room framing Van Gogh, a personal highlight of the exhibition was to lose myself in JW Turner channelling his alchemy in depictions of light and colour as he captures Ulysses deriding Polyphemus – Homer’s Odyssey, reflecting natural beauty in his idiosyncratic ways.

Another awe inspiring experience is taking in Rembrandt’s self-portrait from 1659, which sees him incarnate in a dignified pose with gravitas reminiscent of Raphael’s trademark posturing.

Summa summarum, NGA’s Botticelli to Van Gogh exhibition is an example par excellence for the fact that the true beauty of art can only be partially experienced through virtual means.

For the ones not fortunate enough to attend, there is at least NGA’s opulently illustrated accompanying exhibition catalogue, substantiated with insightful essays and contextualising commentary.

We shall definitely be back on not only to catch NGA’s upcoming exhibitions but to spend ample time exploring how their Know My Name initiative is travelling, which is aimed at celebrating the art of Australian women artists by featuring exhibitions and creative collaborations that highlight the talent and work of women artists in a bid to ensure gender parity.

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images from gallery website

Spring Loaded

Racecourse Randwick

Sydney, Australia

May 8, 2021

Australia continues to see 2021 bringing back a sense of normalcy, with live shows becoming more regular occurrences and bigger music festivals returning.

After having had an ill-fated COVID-tainted start in 2020, it was great to see the Spring Loaded extravaganza going ahead.

In essence, Spring Loaded is a daylong homage to the early days of festivals like Big Day Out and Homebake, with the line-up paying homage to the crème de la crème of Australian music from the 1990s.

The Sydney incarnation of the nationwide touring festival saw an eclectic bill comprised of bands like Grinspoon, Jebediah, Magic Dirt, Frenzal Rhomb, The Meanies and Tumbleweed amongst other take the stage and while there certainly was a sense of nostalgia and a more mature aged audience, the bands proved to be no less visceral and thrilling than twenty plus years ago, with quite a few of them not only relying on their respective back catalogues but convincing with their most recent emissions.

Upon first entering the festival grounds, Brisbane’s Screamfeeder serenaded us as they were in the midst of exciting an already sizeable audience with a solid set, followed by Tumbleweed from Wollongong, who I have been longing to experience in the third dimension for the longest time as I have always harboured a weak spot for them marrying sixties psychedelia with lush wah-wah drenched layerings to create their idiosyncratic stoner rock variant.

What better band could follow than the Australian alternative rock institution Magic Dirt with their polished garage rock, with especially their earlier Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey inspired tracks from their formative phase proving to be highlights of the day.

Frenzal Rhomb has been around for nearly thirty years and is yet to disappoint in a live environment. With their idiosyncratic melange of tongue-in-cheek high-octane punk rock blasts and quality banter, they delivered a tight and energetic set that despite the size of the festival felt intimate.

Next up was Jebediah channelling their straight forward alternative rock, which translates brilliantly to a live show as it foregoes virtuosic window-dressing and instead focusses on kick-ass tunes, with each one seamlessly transitioning into the next.

Having seen Phil Jamieson perform not only solo but also in a variety of guises as part of collaborations over the last couple of years, it was good to see him back at the helm of Grinspoon. Well-aged and refined on the exterior,  the crowd-pleasing set was a mix of both unpolished and polished classic tracks, delivered in a powerful and on-point manner with Jamieson not only belting out bangers with his trademark boisterous vocal delivery but energetically bouncing about with gusto while doing so.

Summa summarum, a day that not only celebrated some of the bast Australian alternative has to offer but a celebration of the joys that only live music can deliver.

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photos by @k.a.vv