Don Kavanagh met some guys making some amazing drinks at the Food Show.
ONE OF the joys of this job is that you get to go to a lot of trade shows.
Sometimes this can be incredibly dull but good trade shows are a blast and a real highlight of my working life, as it gives me a chance to catch up with new developments and old friends. The Auckland Food Show was an example of this.
It was a great show, as I’m sure the thousands of hungry punters who turned up to stack their bags with as much free stuff as possible would agree. At times it was like the Boxing Day sales, with determined grazers cutting in front of your more sedate correspondent to nab the last free sample of organic icecream.
But it did give me the chance to catch up with a couple of people who are making some amazing drinks.
Ron Trigg is the man behind Mike’s Organic Brewery in Taranaki, a producer once famous for one beer — Mike’s Mild. Now a certified- organic brewery, they have expanded the range to include a pilsner, a wonderful whisky porter and even a strawberry beer, all from organic ingredients.
Recently he has been working on a few new brews, which aren’t organically produced but are still cracking beers. “Mike’s illegitimate sons”, as Ron describes them, are a series of beers aimed at the beer drinker who is put off by tags like “organic”. Made up of three pale ales and a cloudy wheat beer, the range is excellent, especially the OMPA, or Onemorepaleale, a heady mix of piney hops and sweet malt that hits several spots in one lush mouthful.
The Taranaki Pale Ale, Single American Pale Ale and the Taranaki Hefeweizen Cloudy are great beers, too, and well worth checking out. They should be available from your local quality beer supplier.
The other good catch-up I had was with Neil Catherall, the distiller responsible for the exquisite Lighthouse Gin, Greytown’s greatest contribution yet to New Zealand society. If you haven’t tried this already, do so as soon as you can. Made with local botanicals (like kawakawa), the flavours are crisp, clean and utterly beguiling.
It’s absolutely stunning and I only wish there were more people willing to go the lengths that Neil does in order to make a really fine spirit.