In all the time that humans have been distilling spirits, throughout all the research and experimentation and innovation, one aspect of production remains the same: the maturation of spirits in oak barrels. Here’s why.
Tag: spirits
What is Australian gin? Well, there’s a few ways you can look at it, but one thing’s for sure: it’s the botanicals, stupid.
Wherever you find vineyards and grape growers in the world, you’re bound to find enterprising vignerons operating some kind of still to make use of excess grapes.
“We trade as a third waver café by day and a bar by night,” said Dax Byrne (ex theloft, Bathers Pavillion), one of the owners of this new Melbourne bar and café. Third wave coffee is getting in to more and more coffee joints — that is, going beyond the espresso thing and into pourover coffee, filter coffees and all that. They take an approach to coffee that seeks to be only a step removed from the growers — an approach that we think will increasingly be applied by bars with respect to the spirits they stock.
You’ve heard of BYO right? It’s an Australian tradition not seen in much of the rest of the world. Well, here’s a new one: BYF (or at least that’s what we’re calling it). Cobbler is promising patrons that they can bring their own food to the beverage-only venue.
Boring stuff, right? But wherever booze is there’s someone looking to make money from it, someone wanting to tax it, and someone looking to find ways they can sell more of it. Yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald carried a story about calls from the Distilled Spirits Industry Council of Australia to change the way alcohol is taxed — which would see ciders attracting a higher tax rate than they do now.