Hot 100: What’s new in drinks

Pick of the tea

Though India is the world’s second largest tea producer, its first luxury tea brand was launched only last year. Harvard-educated arts philanthropist Radhika Chopra named her company No 3 Clive Road after the house in Delhi where her father was born and her comptroller-general grandfather lived. She aims to celebrate the elegance of that age in her range of hand-blended teas and stationery. We particularly like the Maheshwar blend, created for a recent Indian royal wedding: first-flush Darjeeling, cloves, ginger, dried apricots and jasmine. Available at select boutiques in India and online. threecliveroad.com

RED, RED WINE

Expect an avalanche of smashable young Australian reds this year. One of the biggest trends of 2015 was winemakers releasing their reds earlier than ever – bright, juicy wines made with minimal intervention, whole-bunch ferments, low or no sulphur, out on the market and all sold before the next vintage came around. Because, for many makers, the 2016 harvest was the earliest on record, you can expect to see this season’s reds cropping up even earlier – like about now.

LESS IS MORE

Switched-on sommeliers around Australia are realising you don’t have to be all things to all people and are narrowing the focus of their wine lists to delicious effect. We love the all-Australian drinks offering (and we do mean 100 per cent Aussie, including mineral waters and soft drinks), for instance, at Ryan and Kirstyn Sessions’ Fen restaurant in Port Fairy. 22 Sackville St, Port Fairy, (03) 5568 3229, fenportfairy.com.au 

Wild vines

One of the most exciting wine ventures to have emerged over the past 12 months is Manon. Monique Millton, who grew up on New Zealand’s pioneering biodynamic Millton winery in Gisborne, and her partner, chef Tim Webber, who wrote the original menus for Sydney’s Love, Tilly Devine, have settled in the Adelaide Hills and are making some fabulously funky wines, including an intriguing white and a red from two local abandoned vineyards – sites where the unpruned, unsprayed, untended vines have grown wild and free. manonfinewine.com

Yes, we can

Corn. Peas. Fish. Caramel. The range of things getting sealed in cans in-house by the Porteño team at Continental, their deli-diner-bar in Sydney’s Newtown, is extensive. They even sell T-shirts in tins. But it’s Martinnies, the canned Martinis created by manager and co-owner Michael Nicolian that have really caught the public imagination. “I simply seal a classic Tanqueray gin Martini with vermouth, pre-diluted with a little water, in a can,” he says. “We pop the top and pour it into the glass, lemon zest and all.” Next-up: Canhattans. 210 Australia St, Newtown, NSW, (02) 8624 3131, continentaldelicatessen.com.au 

yes, we can

Corn. Peas. Fish. Caramel. The

range of things getting sealed

in cans in-house by the Porteño

team at Continental, their

deli-diner-bar in Sydney’s

Newtown, is extensive. They

even sell T-shirts in tins. But

it’s Martinnies, the canned

Martinis created by manager

and co-owner Michael Nicolian

that have really caught the

public imagination. “I simply

seal a classic Tanqueray gin

Martini with vermouth,

pre-diluted with a little water,

in a can,” he says. “We pop the

top and pour it into the glass,

lemon zest and all.” Next-up:

Canhattans. 210 Australia St,

Newtown, NSW, (02) 8624 3131,

continentaldelicatessen.com.au

The daily grind

You could go to G&B Coffee in the Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles and have such a pleasant experience you would have no idea that you were standing at the nerdy edge of coffee. Here, Charles Babinski and Kyle Glanville, two high priests of serious coffee, challenge the orthodoxy with creations such as the Espresso Dark and Stormy, Fizzy Hoppy Tea, an iced latte with freshly made almond-macadamia milk. This is where purists who drink only single-origin filter coffee come to stray. Grand Central Market, 312 S Broadway, Los Angeles, gandbcoffee.com

Size matters

Microlot beans are to coffee what grand crus are to Burgundy – expensive, rare and delicious. The term is used for a single variety grown on one farm produced in batches smaller than 300 kilos. “The spirit of microlot coffee is the attention to detail – the time is taken to experiment with and improve the bean,” says Hazel de los Reyes, owner of Coffee Alchemy and Gumption, two of Sydney’s top coffee spots, and new venture Micro, which serves predominantly microlot coffee from a small shopfront in Barangaroo. Micro, shop R8.02, 23 Barangaroo Ave, Sydney, NSW, microcoffee.com 

Tall orders

Noma’s head sommelier Mads Kleppe called Two Metre Tall’s Derwent Valley brew house “paradise” after collaborating with Ashley and Jane Huntington on Noma Australia’s Snakebite apéritif. The pair produce their own farmhouse ales and ciders using Tasmanian ingredients. We’re hanging out for the 2017 Forager’s Ale, made with wild and foraged ingredients. Until then, crack into the May release of Original Soured Ale. “It’s a 100 per cent spontaneous and wild ferment,” says Jane Huntington. “It takes 18 months to make and in this time hundreds of species are at work, some acidifying the ale and some adding texture.” Two Metre Tall, 2862 Lyell Hwy, Hayes, Tas, 0400 969 677, 2mt.com.au 

Herbal high

It’s healed the wounded. It’s soothed via cups of tea. And now chamomile has become the elusive but curiously familiar flavour subtly accenting dishes in restaurants around the nation, Pei Modern’s roast lamb among them. peimodern.com.au 

Flat white in Chiang Mai

How do Chiang Mai locals take their coffee? Seriously. The northern Thai city, known for its splendid temples and laid-back vibe, has a raft of new baristaled coffee shops with in-house roasting of fair-trade, single-origin beans. Many of the local owners honed their skills in Australian cafés. Their latte art is almost as intricately detailed as the city’s 14th-century wat façades.

Cutting-edge cube

Rising dramatically from a vineyard in McLaren Vale is the d’Arenberg Cube, a striking five-storey architectural “puzzle” by ADS Architects that will house a new tasting room, bars, offices and a second restaurant at the family-owned d’Arenberg winery. The doors to the origami-like entrance are due to open in early 2017. A time-lapse camera, meanwhile, is capturing progress on construction every 10 minutes.

darenberg.com.au 

Vodka revival

In the search for the drink of the moment, a successor to the omnipresent Negroni or Aperol Spritz, some leading mixologists are returning to a tried and tested liquor – vodka. “We’re seeing the resurgence of artisanal vodkas, which are unfiltered and have a substantial taste,” says Luke Ashton of Sydney bar This Must be the Place. Ashton flags Hartshorn Distillery’s Sheep Whey Vodka from Tasmania ($100 for 500ml) for its “nutty, creamy flavour”, and Hippocampus Vodka from Perth ($79.99 for 700ml), which is crafted from biodynamic local wheat. “You can appreciate them like a malt whisky,” he says. grandvewe.com.au, hippocampusmd.com.au 

Get a grip

Australian winemakers and drinkers alike are developing a passion for reds with seriously savoury, tongue-hugging tannin. The northern Italian red nebbiolo is the best-known example of this style – outstanding wines include those from Pizzini, Fletcher, Giaconda and Casa Freschi – but other grippy southern Italian grapes are showing extreme promise, too. Look for aglianico from Chalmers in Heathcote and sagrantino from Sassafras in Canberra, Oliver’s Taranga in McLaren Vale and an ambitiously priced, preposterously named $200 sagrantino from d’Arenberg called The Athazagoraphobic Cat.

Bitter victory

Hot on the heels of the artisan vermouth boom comes a clutch of fantastic new Australian bitter drinks embracing indigenous ingredients. Økar ($25) and Red Økar ($39) are like local versions of Aperol and Campari, made at Applewood Distillery in the Adelaide Hills using riberries grown in subtropical Australia. And Nocturne ($90) is a remarkably complex bitter fortified digestif liqueur from Victorian vermouth producer Maidenii, flavoured with plants such as quandong and muntari berries, and black truffle.

applewooddistillery.com.au, maidenii.com.au

Grape comeback

While we love that Australia is embracing recently arrived European grapes such as nebbiolo, we also love how some makers are resurrecting overlooked and undervalued varieties that have been growing here for 150 years or more. Mataró, also known as mourvèdre, is at the forefront of this revival, bringing its dark, animal intensity to red blends such as those of Ruggabellus in the Barossa, and going solo in powerful, sinewy wines such as Hewitson’s Old Garden or Caillard Mataró.

caillardwine.com, hewitson.com.au, ruggabellus.com.au 

Advocate for Oz

One of the most influential people in the Australian wine scene doesn’t even live here. UK-based Eric Narioo runs leading wine merchant Les Caves de Pyrene, and was one of the first to discover and support Australia’s new generation of natural winemakers, and feature them at the annual Real Wine Fair in London. He is co-owner of some of the city’s best natural-focused wine bars, such as Terroirs – bars whose ethos permeates many of the places to have opened here in the past few years – and is a partner in Melbourne’s great new wine bar Embla. With his Australian-born winemaker wife, Anna Martens, he also owns vineyards and a winery, Vino di Anna, on the slopes of Mount Etna, a natural wine haven that has become a pilgrimage site for aspiring young grape-treaders and somms.lescaves.co.uk 

Bar Brilliance

Achilles Heel is an atmospheric bar on the Brooklyn waterfront that could get by on looks alone: buckled ceiling, potbelly stove, flattering lighting. But owner Andrew Tarlow (Diner, Marlow & Sons, Wythe Hotel) has a knack for identifying talent and getting out of the way, and the short, strange menu of satisfying bar snacks from chef Lee Desrosiers feels like it came from the near future: shaved kohlrabi and walnut miso, minced pork and sticky rice, shaved beef tendon with celery and fresh chilli. You might not yet know it, but it’s exactly what you want with a cocktail.

180 West St, Brooklyn, New York, +1347 987 3666, achillesheelnyc.com 

Real cider rules

With the global craft cider bubble showing no signs of bursting, the young Danish founders of Æblerov wild cider are bringing together 20 like-minded European producers for Scandinavia’s first cider festival. They’ve named their one-day event Rigtig Cider – rigtig being Danish for real – because it’s about spontaneously fermented cider made from 100 per cent unpasteurised juice. The festival will be held on 28 August under Copenhagen’s Knippelsbro bridge, a spot that’s otherwise legendary, especially in summer, for pop-ups run by wine importer Rosforth & Rosforth. aeblerov.com, rosforth.dk 

Pretty in pink

After decades of wine media, and makers and merchants unsuccessfully urging Australians to drink more rosé – but, really, is there a better all-round wine for summer? – it looks like the pink revolution has finally arrived: both independent retailers and the major chains are reporting huge rosé sales (as in emptied shelves and fridges) over the last summer, especially the pale, dry style typified in De Bortoli’s delicious La Bohème Pinot Rosé (a steal at around $20).

Paddock to bottle

A seriously exciting trend in artisan spirits is the paddock-to-bottle approach, where the distiller grows their own raw ingredients rather than buying them in. The new, generously flavoured Husk Virgin Cane Rum ($100 for 700ml), for example, is made from first-press sugarcane juice grown expressly for this purpose near the distillery at Tumbulgum in northern NSW. And to produce his superb and unique Belgrove rye whiskies in Tasmania, distiller Peter Bignell not only harvests his own grain, but also fashioned his own copper still, which he heats with his own homemade biodiesel. huskdistillers.com, belgrovedistillery.com.au 

Decant this

Decanter designs get more free-form and outrageous each year. The latest sculptural, serpentine models from Austrian glass manufacturer Riedel include the huge mouth-blown Mamba ($800; pictured), which looks and feels like a coiled cobra. And Sydney glass artist Brian Hirst has expanded his range of satisfyingly chunky, organically inspired decanters (starting at $200) to include vessels big enough to hold a magnum. riedelglass.com.au, glassdecanter.com.au