Water of Life - Roe & Co.

Despite having more than a weak spot for peated variants, I have always had a failble for Irish whisikies as you would know if you followed this series, with Irish whiskeys being a bit underrepresented yet highly appreciated in the instalments we covered them with.

Needless to say, when  Diageo announced four years ago the return to Irish whiskey with the launch of Roe & Co. after they parted ways with Bushmills, I was intrigued.

Roe and Co. is a new Irish blend that set out to do push the boundaries and do something different by employing the services of Master Blender Caroline Martin to create a drop with a distinct Irish profile yet being versatile enough to become a go-to for bartenders the world over.

The pear shaped bottle in itself, being rounded and completely transparent, is a thing of beauty, which bodes well for pale golden liquid.

Clocking in at 45% ABV, Roe and Co’s core expression tickles the nostrils with fruity notes topped by pear highlights, set against a honeyed vanilla backbone and hints of delicate spices.

Texture-wise, what materializes on the roof of the mouth is creamy, bordering on the oily with flavours continuing what the nose promised, i.e. sweet and fruity apple notes and pear nuances mixed with honey, woody vanilla derived from the maturation in first fill Bourbon casks, culminating in more dominant gingery warm spicy flavours, which seamlessly transitions into a nice elongated finish with the sweet notes delicately fading into a peppery crescendo.

Roe and Co’s non-chill filtered core expression is a fine Irish blend of single malt and grain whiskeys set to excite aficiondas and the uninitiated alike as it makes both a nice addition to cocktails as well as a dram to be enjoyed by itself.

Once travel restrictions are lifted, I cannot wait to pay a visit to Roe and Co’s newly opened distillery to try not only their cask strength single malts and grains but their own Guiness Citra IPA cask finished  (I am salivating already) and Guiness Antwerpen Stout variants, which are unfortunately currently only available in Ireland.

Thus Let Us Drink Beer – OZ round-up

Green Beacon Red’s Dead IPA, Wayward Brewing’s new sour and Foghorn Brewery

If you have followed this series diligently, you would have recognized that there are a few Australian breweries that not only emit interesting new concoctions on a regular basis, but push the boundaries every time in terms of creating fulminant flavour experiences.

Green Beacon is one of the distilleries that yet has to disappoint and if you have had the fortune to sample some of their core range ales, you would probably do the same as me, i.e. be on the lookout for their fantastic seasonals which they revisit at different times of the year.

One of those limited releases is the aptly titled Red IPA, Red’s Dead,  which delivers is the hop department but has the pirate skeleton which adorns the packaging flex its muscles specifically in the chocolatey end of the malt spectrum, culminating in  sweet, biscuity and berry rich highlights, which are counterpointed by a resinous, piney backbone. The result is a complex, flavourful yet subtle IPA with an ABV of 6.5% ideal for the colder months of the year and a perfect component of a boilermaker with a peaty dram.

Foghorn Brewery

Despite of having released an array of beer variants and with its head brewer  and former university lecturer Shawn Sherlock being accolade decorated, I was yet to be introduced to the emissions of Foghorn Brewery. With its HQ being located in a converted industrial unit in Australia’s Newcastle, Foghorn’s line-up is comprised of a diverse range of style from pilsners to saisons, stout, IPAs and melanges in between.

Let’s start with one of Foghorn’s more accessible emissions, i.e. the sessionable Newy Pale Ale, which is understood to be a hoppy ode to Newcastle. With the hops being at the fruity end of the spectrum and being added late in the brewing access , they unveil their full potential set against malty and slightly yeasty highlights. With an IBU of 35 and ABV of 4.5% a nice entry point into the realm of how Foghorn channels its alchemy.

A personal favourite of Foghorn’s brews is the visual and nomenclatural ode to David Bowie, i.e. the Young Americans IPA, which is a balanced, sublime India Pale Ale paying homage to the traditional American style with a welcome overload of Simcoe and Citra hops, which are infused with idiosyncratic flavour notes via the addition of New Zealand Wakatu flowers, resulting in a delicious tour de force of resinous goodness, set against a well-calibrated bitterness. Clocking in at a devilish ABV of 6.66%, Foghorn’s Young American IPA makes one lust for their more limited variants and a visit to their brewhouse.

With the dram of a neck pour of a freshly opened Laphroaig Quarter Cask waiting for a companion, I gave Foghorn’s Sligo Stout a go and well, it is a thing of beauty. With an ABV close to eight percent and the name being an homage to the Western part of Ireland and its legendary stout heritage, what hits the palate is a melange of dark chocolate and nicely calibrated coffee nuances , which rests against a balanced backbone of hoppy bitterness. Once sampled, it is not further wondrous that it won a range of “best stout” category awards.

Wayward Brewing

Wayward Brewing has established itself firmly on the firmament of Sydney breweries that pump out consistently quality , limited releases and while the names and flavour might sounds a bit wild at times, they always manage to pull it off.

Case in point: Wayward Brewing’s new Peaches and Cream Vanilla Sour.

Yes, you would be right in assuming that this one is located a bit left of centre of what a more traditional beer aficionado would expect from a brewery, however,  Wayward has channelled its alchemy in a way that even if you are consider sours an acquired taste, you cannot help to find yourself thinking that it was a worthwhile tasting experience.

Resting on a foundation of the marriage of  Australian-grown peaches and Madagascar Bourbon vanilla, this velvety sour is what the name suggest, i.e. the equivalent of an ice-cream sundae in beer form, however, it would not be Wayward if it did not delicately meander the spectrum from sour to sweet and back in manner that lets one discover more than the nuances that the name suggests.

Another example par excellence for Wayward confidently going off the beaten track to win over new palates.

I cannot wait for Wayward Brewing’s upcoming IPA variants…

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images from company websites

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Enmore Theatre

April 22, 2021

Sydney, Australia

Claiming that the collective known the world over as King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is “prolific” and “productive” would be an understatement par excellence: The band has steadily pumped out quality releases ever since their inception ten years ago, clocking in at currently seventeen full length albums.

If I had to pin down the DNA of King Gizzard to the uninitiated, I would probably start by explaining that they have created their own microcosm, i.e. “The Gizzverse”, where psychedelic rock is married with a knack for catchy and innovatively compact song writing with enough space for all things weird to be incorporated, not for novelty’s sake but to add to their idiosyncratic allure. Needless to say, with close to twenty albums under their belts, the driving force is the will to consistently reinvent oneself and avoid stasis at any cost. It also allows to confidently march down off the beaten track routes and if it proves not fruitful, the sheer volume of outcome helps to make it fade in the wealth of goodness that is being produced.

Having used the lockdown period to work on new material and with pandemic related restrictions easing on terra australis, I was excited to celebrate the attendance of a proper live show with the sextet.

The ability to draw from an extensive, stylistically varied catalogue bode well for an evening that proved to be a celebration of music and life within the realm of the Gizzverse. With an unrivalled fluidity, the King Gizzard was not only frenetically welcome by a hungry audience at the sold out Enmore Theatre, but incarnated with a nuanced set synthesizing their entire musical prowess, taking detours via Kraut rock, microtonal Middle Eastern influences, Americana, homages to proto punk and metal, world music and everything in between. The fact that it never feels overloaded, speaks volumes about King Gizzard having finetuned carefully calibrated their live performance while still allowing for improvisational impulses to blossom, which because of their surprising nature and crescendos the whole band gets involved in, become highlights in themselves.

Set against projections framing them in their own worlds, King Gizzard in a live environment is a treat to be savoured and a mesmerizing and  unique experience where a band is unveils its very own distinctiveness by being musically chameleon-esque as they could be.

A much needed life-affirming musical rollercoaster ride.

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photos by @k.a.vv

Design Innovation and Integration 

BIS Publishers

The times and circumstances we live in force us more than ever to innovate and adapt to new ways of living and working, moving. Being open to change is the vital first step to ensure and facilitate innovative transitions.

Design Innovation and Integration tackles the aforementioned by not merely providing and elaborating on the tools needed but through a guiding mentorship in written form to transcend into a realm beyond the mere inception of creative ideas, but to make design an integral part of one’s practices and DNA.

There is a myriad of approaches and theoretical solutions to problem solving and overcoming complex hindrances, however, what often lacks is a true understanding of how these can be made a reality. Enter Design Innovation and Integration, which sheds lights on underlying principles, the alignment of methods and tools needed and how to use, apply and adapt them in the most practical manner to meet the requirements of the respective context.

Via case studies and resting on a sound foundation of ten years of independent research, design integration is illustrated, highlighting both best practice as well as pitfalls and opportunities for improvement.

Summa summarum, an engaging book that marries accessible practical approaches with theoretical concepts and thereby enables growth.

Turbonegro, Tom of Finland and High Gloss

My first exposure to Turbonegro must have been via the triumvirate that are the Hot Cars and Spent Contraceptives, Helta Skelta and Never is Forever albums, which entered my rotation in the early 1990s.

However, it was not until the 1996 release of the defining Ass Cobra album and the subsequent tour, where I got to meet them the first time, that it clicked.

What Happy Tom, i.e., Thomas Seltzer, the creative force behind the band, and his worthy constituents had created was a refined and deliberate signification of styles and influences, which the band channelled into their own boundary pushing brand of alchemy.

Musically, Turbonegro have never not been beyond all doubt and when they started to adapt their denim and moustache look in the mid-90ies, after trials and errors in the style department, things really took off.

To understand the nuances of the homosexual innuendo of Turbonegro, the oeuvre of Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen, i.e. Tom of Finland, is indispensable. In essence, each constituent of Turbonegro modelled themselves in a subversive manner after Tom of Finland’s characters.

Abrams book’s ode to the queer cult artist, i.e. Tom of Finland: The Official Life and Work of a Gay Hero, was created in close collaboration with the Tom of Finland Foundation and not only pays homage to the well-known artwork celebrating every facet of the male body, archetypes and hyper masculinity, but also sheds light on rarely seen materials from the archives.

The book is not only introduced via a foreword by Jean Paul Gaultier, but the pencil drawn depictions of gay erotica are substantiated by an extensive interview with the man himself, which is not only lending perspective but makes this tome one of the few on the subject that resemble having an authorised, official seal of approval.

No matter your sexual preference or the often hyperbolic aesthetics, it would be difficult to argue that Tom of Finland lacks a liberating, keen and cheeky sense of humour and artistic values that go far beyond mere graphic and explicit sex content, which ultimately helped to create a new identity for the gay scene. With over three hundred photographs and illustrations, a beautifully curated and authorative coffee table book on the subject and one that is bound to raise eyebrows.

Change of gear?

Let’s transition to the comparatively tame heteronormative mainstream realm: After starting out as the assistant of David Chapelle, Vijat Mohindra has established himself firmly on the firmament of a new generation of idiosyncratic photographers and has refined an aesthetic of his own.

While there are no pre-defined boundaries as to the subjects of his lens, the common denominator could be pinned down to hyper-syntheticism and defiance of the portrayal of candid realism.

High Gloss: The Art of Vijat Mohindra is a monograph dedicated to his fantasy worlds and his unique collaborations with brands and artists. While it is not further wondrous for musicians like Miley Cyrus and Nicki Minaj to be depicted in Mohindra’s over-the-top glossy manner, things get interesting and nuanceful when artists like Amanda Lepore, Tyra Banks, and A$AP Rocky enter his microcosm.

The eye candy found in High Gloss not only comprises the photos widely known from mainstream publications, but entail footage specifically shot for this tome, which not only looks ace across the table from Tom of Finland, but should be of interest to anyone remotely interested in the art sitting at the intersection of photography and fashion.