The current period has been extremely busy at Martini Whisperer HQ with my recent appearance at the ADA Conference a few weeks ago, and this coming first week of July I am part of the judging team at the Royal Melbourne Show International Spirits competition for several days.
I’ll be judging just gins this time around and apparently they had over 1100 entries for this years awards across all categories, so the judges are going to be busy.
Australian Distillers Association Conference
The Conference was a big, big day at the office, some 12+ hour days, and I was engaged to ensure the proceedings ran smoothly and MC the whole event along with the gala awards ceremony, plus there was a trade expo (itself fascinating with bottle makers to designers and still makers from China), along with several break out professional development sessions and panel discussions, one of which I hosted regarding tourism experiences for distillery tasting venues.
Happily, everything ran on time, and it had a great vibe and I was thrilled to meet so many readers and followers of my social media there, as well as get such amazing feedback from delegates.
I ran on hot water and honey as I managed to arrive with a cold, but my voice and energy lasted – just!
As the organisers emailed me afterwards:
“We absolutely want to say that from the moment you stepped on stage, you set exactly the right tone for the conference: warm, engaging and professional. You kept everything moving, while making every speaker, sponsor and audience feel welcome and valued.
So many people have told me what a fantastic job you did, and I couldn’t agree more – and at the Awards too!
Thank you for your time, your generosity, enthusiasm and willingness to throw yourself wholeheartedly into the event. It made a real difference, and we are incredibly grateful.”
So mission accomplished.
Hopefully Adelaide has recovered and restocked after over 500 thirsty distillers and friends decended on their fine city.
When I get a moment, I’ll do an article about some of the places we visited on one of the field trips in South Australia including some distilleries that trace their roots back over 100 years.
New Vermouth
With a few exceptions, Vermouth production in Australia is usually small batch, and made by wine makers as something of a side hustle.
But a year or so ago, I was contacted by some long time colleagues at the award winning Canberra region vineyard, Mount Majura to explore the idea of creating some fine Vermouths as a project. Their idea was to create something singular, that reflected the quality of their own wine making expertise, but have its own personality and brand presence.
The planets didn’t align for me to be part of the project beyond being a source of some research and a sounding board, and this weekend they debuted their Blanco, Seco and Rojo releases. The first two are based on Chardonnay, whilst the Rojo is Shiraz based.
I was given some early bottlings and they are delicious and refined, aromatic, light in body, not austere but still with a clean, crisp finish, and they stand up perfectly on their own as an aperitif and versatile in a classic cocktail. Beautiful stuff.
Yesterday I sat down with Fergus, one of the team at the Vineyard for an exclusive preview for my YouTube channel. The vermouths are a small batch initially, and are available directly from the vineyard online and select outlets.
New Australian Distillers Added
The pace of new entrants seems to be slowing in the Australian market, but one of the many data points that came up at the Conference was that there were maybe a couple of hundred new applicants waiting for government approval to start production.
The issue seems, partly, that there are some wanting to become distillers to take advantage of some tax treatments and create bulk, not premium spirits, and there in issue, particularly in Victoria of unscrupulous operators flooding the market with some very dodgy product.
So I’ve added some new gin, vodka, rum makers to the lists, which you can find here.
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