Wanderlust - March & April 2024

A tale of two cities for sure. Lady Marmalade captures English breakfast sensibilities and rizzes them up with Parisian pizzazz to create a sumptuous, bitter sweet citrus adventure.

Balanced better than a Can-Can dancer can, you can take Lady Marmalade to the next level with a quick spritz or rinse of absinthe to finish.

Have you ever travelled to South East Asia and explored a food market by night? The grilled meats, frying pans and bustling locals bring an earthy exotic headiness that you never forget.

I first ate mango and sticky rice sitting on a milk crate in a night market on Koh Phi Phi. The night was clear, and we’d been playing with the luminescent algae in the water.

This drink takes me back there, sweet chunks of mango and globs of sweet, sticky coconut rice with sweat running down my back and the bustle of island life going on around me.

I’ve only been to America a couple of times, and on both of those I spent time in the South. American tastes aren’t complex: If it’s hot, make it cold. If you want to be refreshed, make it long. If you want to enjoy it, make it sweet. If you really want to enjoy it, add bourbon.

Peach and lemon go together like bourbon and iced tea, and there’s not much more refreshing on a hot New Orleans night than a long cool glass of classic southern iced tea.

China is on the rise, and 2024 is the Year of the Dragon!
Lychee and umeshu are iconic asian flavours, with strong influence throughout Chinese cooking and culture.

Baiju, largely unknown to western drinkers, is the worlds most popularly consumed alcoholic beverage, thanks to almost one billion drinking age Chinese. Think something between vodka, cachaca, cognac and pisco. It’s distilled, but retains earthy and almost agricultural notes that create a vibrant background for the umeshu and lychee it plays with here.

Brazilian Lemonade is a classic summer beverage that involves whole limes, sweetened condensed milk and ice being blended in a long and refreshing summer citrus smoothie.

We’ve added a slice of Queensland with our house-made sweetened condensed macadamia milk, and some of North Queensland’s finest Brazilian style rum - Burdekin Rum’s Virgin Cane Spirit.

We were staying in Kavala, on the way from Athens to Gallipoli, and we set up a bonfire on the beach with wooden crates given to us by a family doing construction nearby.

We got supplies from a small store up the road and I sat with my feet in golden sand, watching the sun set over the water. While aniseed was not foreign to me (hello nightclub sambucca shots…), I’d never had it with lemon and ginger beer before.

That taste will forever be attached to a sunset swim in the Aegean Sea, with girls in bikinis and a bonfire on the beach.

The desert is a special place. Vastness and solitude broken only by great hospitality, warmth and welcoming by those who live there.

Pistachios, honey, rosewater, and spices. The flavours of a desert caravan making their way from oasis to oasis. Bringing them together into a cocktail took hours of patience and trial and error, but was worth it in the end.