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But Champagne now has competition. The latest French obsession is butter. French butter, particularly the Breton sort made by Maison Bordier, has acquired the sort of following usually associated with limited-edition handbags and restaurants whose booking systems open at 3am and are full by 3.01.
To be the world’s best at anything is outrageous. Most of us would settle for being the best in our own kitchen at locating the scissors, or the best in the family at reversing out of a Bunnings car park. To be declared the world’s best at something suggests rarefied air and a tiny plinth. The world’s best omelette. The world’s best left-footed goal. The world’s best hotel pillow, which I am convinced exists and is being kept from us by powerful interests.
In 1884, a steamboat came to grief on the Albert River and washed up near the Beenleigh sugar property with a copper still on board. This was the sort of historical accident that makes modern branding departments sob into their mood boards. John Davy and Francis Gooding, who were growing sugarcane in that steamy corner of Queensland, looked at the stranded apparatus and appear to have reached the only sane conclusion: the universe wanted rum.
Handpicked Wines is a highly organised, beautifully hydrated, soil-conscious, Pinot-whispering operation in which even the worms probably have professional development plans.
Topper’s Mountain is well suited to such vinous eccentricity. Founded by vigneron Mark Kirkby, the vineyard sits in one of Australia’s youngest wine regions, where high altitude, cool climate and rich red volcanic ash soils create the sort of conditions that alternative varieties find extremely agreeable. If mainstream grapes are the people who arrive at dinner parties with a reliable bottle of Chardonnay and sensible shoes, Topper’s Mountain is where the more intriguing guests gather in the kitchen: Manseng, Nebbiolo, Gewürztraminer, Touriga, Tinta Cão, Tinta Roriz and now, the Spanish oddity with the almost biblical backstory.
There are certain inventions that make humanity look briefly magnificent. The wheel. The printing press. Antibiotics. The emergency Tim Tam. And now, with absolutely no regard for the dignity of civilisation, Real McCoy has launched a Cinnamon Doughnut Whiskey Liqueur, which sounds ridiculous until you taste it and begin making dangerous plans involving ice and a second bottle.
(There are certain truths in life that arrive with the quiet authority of a well-made martini. One of them is this: things are simply better in threes. Three acts in a play, three wishes in a fairy tale, three attempts before dignity finally packs its bags and leaves the building. And now, gloriously, three juniper hits in a gin that has clearly decided subtlety is for lesser spirits.
Packing traditional hats usually involves building a protective nest of socks and T-shirts and hoping nothing heavier lands on top. With the Bahama Fedora, the process is far less dramatic. It folds down, slips easily into a suitcase, and reappears at your destination looking ready for a holiday.
Beresford Wines has unveiled its 2024 Emblem Pinot Noir and it’s the kind of bottle that should arrive at Christmas lunch wearing tinsel and its own tiny crown. A fresh, silky, food-loving Pinot, it’s practically begging to be paired with gossip, and your aunt’s passive-aggressive comments about “portion control.”
This is the moment Ruski has returned for. Not the sticky-floor chaos at 2am. The elegant, slightly theatrical glamour at 8pm, before anyone ruins their eyeliner.
Long before martini glasses clinked and cocktail bars started charging extra for “clarified ice,” vodka was called “burning water,” and bread wine, because it was cheaper than actual bread. Yet over the centuries this fiery elixir has changed and bears hardly any resemblance to its humble beginnings. It’s been distilled, refined, re-filtered and re-imagined, somehow transformed from a peasant’s antiseptic to the socialite’s aperitif.
The Aperol Spritz is less a cocktail and more a personality trait. It’s the colour of optimism, the taste of satisfaction, and the sound of someone clinking their oversized wine glass against a marble table while whispering, “We should do this every Thursday.” And frankly, it’s glorious.
Opening image credit: nadianb
