Blog — Page 97 of 283

Water of Life – Thomson Distillery

Now, this has been for the longest time in the making: An instalment dedicated exclusively to a craft distillery from New Zealand.

With Australia whiskies being revered the world over and being touted for at times exorbitant prices, I have yet to come across a dram from NZ that disappoints me.

Thomson Whisky is no exception.

Having started out as a small operation / independent bottler with whisky sourced from Willowbank Distillery with a passion for the water of life, Thomson Whisky has grown into a veritable heavyweight and placed itself firmly on the world map with their premium, artisan and progressive whiskies.

Channelling their distilling alchemy via a hand-beaten copper pot still, they limit their ingredients to quality malted barley, pure water, yeast. Following tow distillation runs,  the results of which are then aged in a range of casks including ex-bourbon barrels, NZ red wine casks and smaller variants.

Needless to say, I was got immensely excited when I learned about Thomson releasing their own idiosyncratic Manuka Smoke and South Island variants.

Clocking in at 46% ABV, he Manuke Smoke expression is considered a work in progress, however, it got me from the moment the aromas tickled my nostrils with the melange of subtle campfire smokiness, vanilla, heathery Manuka honey oils, herbal freshness, bay leaf and cinnamon.

On the palate, the smokiness serves as the backbone on which fruity highlights and menthol notes counterpoint each other, before an elongated finish culminates in wood oak, liquorice , hints of aniseed and enough ash to make one lust for another dram. Definitely a unique  and lovable whisky and a recommendation for Islay smoke heads.

Peaty expressions are usually my first choice if distilleries proffer them, however, New Zealand was yet to be experienced territory in that regard.

Thomson’s limited batch bottling is refined with local South Island Peat and being fairly young, I love the iodine nuances which are pervaded by vanilla and faint smoke notes. Not unlike the Manuku Wood expression, there are herbaceous and sour fruity highlights along with the effects of having matured in smaller sized ex-bourbon casks, which adds complexity with the elongated exit finishing on a high spicy note.

Given the quality of their early releases, one is very much looking forward to what the future holds for Thomson Distillery.

Brief Answers to the Big Questions

Stephen Hawking

Hachette Publishing

Stephen Hawking’s contributions are not merely limited to physics and cosmology but he had always something meaningful to contribute to current affairs, especially when asked questions that were thrown at him during public appearances.

His legacy in the scientific realm will live on forever and even after his departure, posthumous research papers were published, which encapsulated his contributions about the complexity of the universe and the paradox of creation not having a creator.

His legacy will also live on in popular culture as he has been immortalized via guest appearances in The Simpsons and Star Trek, entering the horizon of an audience that under normal circumstances might have not become overly familiar with his work.

Brief Answers to the Big Questions is an easily accessible book that was completed for Hawking after he died. In essence, the title is a telling one as Hawking elaborates his theories in a poignant, engaging and effortless manner, peppered with his trademark wit and humour.

Parts of the book touch on elaborations that were originally geared towards an academic audience as part of his lectures and have been translated into a dictus that makes it relatable to mere mortals.

Written from a first-person angle, Hawking’s spirit and insights from his life’s work and it adds another facet to his immense legacy – one that allows him to posthumously address ten of the questions all of us have pondered at such stage.

During his exchanges with the general public, Hawking’s mission was to spark curiosity and to cement the notion that however difficult life may seem, key is to not give up and be creative to shape the future. Brief Answers to the Big Questions does exactly that in the most enjoyable manner,

Fashion with a Conscience – Plant Faced Clothing

Zef culture is an interesting one, as, at least from the outside, it appears to be a movement that has been derived from a state of shame and of national melancholiac sentiments and a way for Afrikaner to self-parody in post-apartheid South Africa.

The South African group Die Antwoord channels its alchemy around the incorporation of local counterculture movements to spice up their musical emissions with anarchic sub-cultural nuances.

Word around the campfire has that Yolandi Visser of Die Antwoord once described the essence of Zef as being poor “but you're sexy, you've got style."

While the point about being impecunious does not necessarily apply to the clientele of Plant Faced Clothing, the latter definitely holds true when it comes to their plant-based and ethical fashion movement, which is geared at preserving our planet to actively support the non-harming or exploitation of any beings - humans, animals, or plants.

The common denominator between Die Antwoord and Plant Faced Clothing is that one of their sweaters is adorned with an excerpt from “Baby’s on Fire”, which was my first exposure to the streetwear brand with a conscience.

What I instantaneously liked about the sweater is the attention to detail and the awesome feel to the use of sustainably, curated fabrics, such as organic and chemical-free cotton or alternatively recycled polyester , all of which have been put together by stringently adhering to ethical certifications, such as Fair Wear or WRAP. The fact that the final products are durable yet feel fluffy on the skin does not hurt either.

However, it does not stop art style and quality as even the mailer boxes are made from 100% recycled paper and printed with lead- and PVC-free water-based inks, with the next stage of PBC looking at phasing out their woven labels to be replaced with recycled ones as well.

Plant Faced Clothing is at the forefront of a new independently owned vegan movement that sits at the crossroads of fashion, art, music, and a cruelty-free lifestyle, which does not let eco-friendly sustainability come to the expense of style and fashionable gear and thereby transcends being a mere brand or fashion fad.

Given that clothes design is one of the more efficient ways of subtly planting seeds for ideas and conversations, brands like Plant Faced Clothing infiltrate the scene conspicuously to spark thoughts within a crowd that under normal circumstances might not be confronted with such ideas.

If you are familiar with the preachy straight edge and vegan movements of the mid-1990s, it is easy to see how much progress has been made when it comes to the creation of sustainable streetwear and Plant Faced Clothing is an example par excellence for the advancement of eco-friendly endeavours with a sensibility for style.

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image from company website

The Formative Years – Glitterhouse Records

It must have been in the early 1990 that through acquisition of a large fanzine collection, I came across old back issues of The Glitterhouse fanzine from the 1980. Content-wise, it intrigued me as it offered insight into genres I had not been exposed to, e.g. the outliers of punk and underground scenes like sixties garage, fuzz rock and psychedelia and similar genres.

I did some more research only to find that the fanzine had not only spurned a distribution, but also a record label, which had started a collaboration with Sub Pop Records as early as 1987. Needless to say, they were at the forefront and on the pulse of the emerging Seattle scene and it was through Glitterhouse Records that I was first exposed to Mudhoney, Tad, Supersuckers and Afghan Whigs.

Glitterhouse Records’ collaboration with Amphetamine Reptile Records opened doors in Europe for heavyweights of the calibre of bands like Helmet, Cows and God Bullies, before they ventured even further by signing bands like Monster Magnet, Sister Double Happiness and Bitch Magnet.

It must have been in 1992 that I got introduced through Glitterhouse Records to one of my favourite albums of all time, i.e. Rollins Band’s opus magnus The End of Silence. Introduced as the new effort of the “zuckende Muskel”, the melange of primal rage, despair, guilt, sorrow and guilt fanned the flames of the burning kerosene tank that was my teenage angst and frustration, with Blues Jam becoming a hymn for the remainder of the year.

Having had such experiences through Glitterhouse Records, it cemented my affiliation with them and while it was never the centre of my record buying endeavours, I have to this day kept an eye on how they evolved as there was always something new and exciting to be discovered and one could trust their curation.

Case in point: In the mid-nineties, instead of riding the grunge wave that had infiltrated mainstream, Glitterhouse took a deliberate detour and focussed on releasing a broader variety of musical styles, specifically with bands from Scandinavia and the UK: This new incarnation of Glitterhouse Records not only exposed me to bands like Midnight Choir, Pere Ubu and the fantastic Wovenhand and 16 Horsepower, but also helped to expand my horizons with a sensitivity for world music through their sub-branch Glitterbeat.

To this day, Glitterhouse has released well over seven hundred titled, which is further substantiated by their distribution and their own open-air festival.

If you are remotely into underground music and are not familiar, there is a lot of delectable and rewarding homework to be done.

Art Gear – Faber Castell

Welcome to the first instalment of a  new series dedicated to the arts and gear that has tried, tested and proven to be useful for artistic pursuits over the years.

If you have grown up in the old world in the 1980s, Faber Castell and its Holzmalstifte would have been a constant companion throughout our early school career. While I was using Faber’s coloured pencils on a regular basis, it was only until many moons later that I really got to appreciate the craftmanship and attention to detail that went into their creation.

With the advent and rising popularity of Photoshop and other digital means to create art, I early on counterintuitively started to refocus on the manual expression and creation of artworks.

For the uninitiated, Faber Castel’s history harks back to the nineteenth century and has been catering to all age groups for all fine art related matters. The beauty is that with the quality and the tactile experience each Faber Castell product is infused with, you can feel the expertise that went into its creation.

Case in point: The ever popular Polychromos collection. Chances are that if your favourite artwork was created with coloured pencils, the utensils used were part of this range or one of Faber Castell’s others, each of which complement each other.

What I specifically like about the Polychromos range is its versatility and robust shape, due to the use of American Cedar wood holding the close to four millimetre in diameter pigment core, which is to unleash its vibrance on the surface of your choosing. The Polychromos pencils are oil-based, which result in a harder core and make them predestined for work that needs precision and it would not be Faber Castell if not only the delivery of pigment was on point as well but fortified against the side effects of sharpening through the injection of resin.

When it comes to daily usage, the fact that all pencils have detailed information printed on the outside relating to a numerical code related to the colour nuance and a rating pertaining sensitivity to light, is immensely helpful. Performance-wise, I like that the pencils cater to both blending and layering.

Needless to say, apart from the differently sized Polychromos sets, there are carefully curated limited-edition sets, with the holy grail being the decadently designed “Karl box”, which was exclusively put together by none other than designer extraordinaire Karl Lagerfeld.

Summa summarum, if you are passionate about the usage of coloured pencils, you’d find yourself hard-pressed to go past Faber-Castel’s Polychromos range comprising a hundred and twenty colour nuances and shades.

Fine writing is another area that unfortunately does not only seem to be a less and less appreciated lost art, but also one that good and affordable tools I find hard to get by.

Faber Castell’s new Hexo range is an interesting one, as it has been specifically designed to cater to the purpose of sketching, creative writing and drafting. With the hexagonal shape being an obvious homage to the original FC graphite pencils, a black large-capacity refill and a twist mechanism to open and close, it has become a constant and reliable companion for both professional and artistic endeavours.

No matter the medium  I am working on when it comes to art related explorations, it usually starts with pinning the vision down via drawings and my go to is the permanent and waterproof, unerasable Faber Castell Pitt artist pen range, which imbues drawings with a vibrancy I do not get from a lot of other pens courtesy of the elongated and more refined brush nib. I love the versatility as with pressure and working with different angles, lines, shading and strokes can be perfectly calibrated and modified as needed.

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image from company website