The World Whiskies Awards took place in London last week, where more than 300 whiskies battled it out during three intensive blind tasting rounds, for the coveted title of ‘2013 World’s Best Whiskies’.

After last year’s Japanese domination of the single malt category, Islay’s Ardbeg Distillery carries off the top single malt title, returning the crown to Scotland. Japanese whiskies still remained strong in the Blended and Blended Malt categories, and the venerable Master of Malt 40 Years Old liqueur scooped the Liqueur category. South African whisky featured in the top ranks again this year with Bain’s winning the title of World’s Best Grain Whisky.

Judges for Whisky Magazine’s independent editorial panel were drawn from the best drinks journalists and retailers across the world, with industry representatives made up of master blenders, distillers and brand ambassadors in the final round.

Some tasting notes from the competition:
Dave Broom
Nose Sweet with some Greek yoghurt & honey. Banana split with toasted hazelnut and Demerara sugar. With water, freshly cut wood, vanilla and a thyme/rose lift.
Palate Sweet with huge vanilla pod creaminess, cocoa butter and light spices from the oak.
Finish Coconut cream and allspice.
Comment Light spirit with big sweet first-fill American influence. Delicious and easy drinking.
Rob Allanson
Nose Very sweet hit at first. Plenty of pencil shavings, vanilla from the oak and just a slight herbal edge to it. In time a little green tobacco.
Palate That sweetness follows on with vanilla custard and a gentle spiced edge.
Finish Clean and crisp.
Comment A very easy whisky to get on with.

No wonder our friend James Mckenzie of Nabygelegen is so proud of living in Wellington.

Suzannne & Tobi with their bottle of La Belle Dame Sans Chapeau

A recipe for ‘Schwäbische Deie’ basically impossible to find, but here is a recipe for flammkuchen with yeast dough, which we have made on occasion with some success!

Flammkuchen

Serves: 3-4 
For the dough:
350 g plain flour
50 g wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons dry yeast or 20 g fresh yeast
250 ml lukewarm water
1 pinch sugar
3 tablespoons vegetable oil

For the topping:
250 g sour cream
50 ml cream
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 onion, cut into thin wedges
125 g good fatty smoked bacon or pancetta, finely diced
salt and pepper to taste

1. Combine the water, yeast and sugar in a small bowl. Set aside for 5 minutes or until foamy. Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the yeast mixture and oil. Use a round-bladed knife in a cutting motion to mix until the mixture is combined. Use your hands to bring the dough together in the bowl.
2. Brush a bowl lightly with oil. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead (or use a kitche aid with a dough hook) for 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place in the prepared bowl and turn to coat in oil. Cover with a tea towel and set aside in a warm, draught-free place to rise for 30 minutes or until dough doubles in size.
3. Meanwhile combine sour cream, cream and garlic and season with salt and pepper, refrigerate until needed.
4. Preheat oven to 220 degrees.
4. Turn out dough and knead again on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic. Roll out dough to very thin until it fits onto an oven tray. Put dough on baking paper and slide on baking tray.
5. Spread sour cream mixture on dough and sprinkle with onion and speck.
6. Cook in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until cooked.

It is also one of the most heard sounds at Augusta de Mist. That and happy laughter of course.

The Burchell’s coucal is also commonly referred to as “The Rainbird” and has a well developed reputation in southern African for being able to predict impending rain.  This association with rain probably arises because coucals often call during periods of high humidity; before, during and after rain.  And the call is magnificent!  A liquid, bubbling cascade of notes that the South African poet Douglas Livingstone referred to as “the rainbird’s liquid note”.

The Burchell’s coucal is near endemic to the southern African region, being limited to the east and south of the region – the regions with higher rainfall – and generally preferring areas with dense vegetation, such as thickets and reed beds.  Although often heard, they are less often seen as they mostly remain hidden in the thick vegetation.  They are generally found in pairs.

Burchell’s coucals are fairly large birds, with a length of approximately 41 cm.  Males and females are alike in plumage colouration, and the females are slightly larger than the males.  They have black heads and tails; back and wings are rufous-brown and underparts are white.  Eyes are red; bills, legs and feet are black.

They are voracious when feeding, hunting small mammals such as mice and rats, reptiles such as lizards and chameleons, small birds such as doves and sparrows, a variety of insects and amphibians such frogs and toads.  Unusually for a bird, when hunting they may stalk after mice in the manner of a domestic cat.  Occasionally they will also eat fruit.

Burchell’s coucals are monogamous, and the males build an untidy deep cup-shaped nest of grass and leaves, usually in dense vegetation.  The females lay a clutch of two to five chalky-white eggs that hatch after an incubation period of approximately 15 days.

Burchell travelled in South Africa between 1810 and 1815, collecting over 50,000 specimens, and covering over 7000 km, much over unexplored terrain. He described his journey in Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, a two-volume work appearing in 1822 and 1824, since reprinted in 1967 by C.Struik of Cape Town. There is little doubt that a third volume was planned, since the second volume ends long before completion of his journey. On 25 August 1815 he sailed from Cape Town with 48 crates of specimens aboard the vessel “Kate”, calling at St. Helena and arriving back at Fulham on 11 November 1815. He travelled in Brazil between 1825 and 1830, again collecting a large number of specimens, including over 20,000 insects. The journals covering his Brazil expedition are missing, as are his diaries relating to his later travels. His field note books, detailing his plant collections, survive at Kew, and from those the latter part of his trip can be reconstructed.

His extensive African collections included plants, animal skins, skeletons, insects, seeds, bulbs and fish. After his death by suicide, the bulk of his plant specimens went to Kew and the insects to Oxford University Museum. He is known for the copious and accurate notes he made to accompany every collected specimen, detailing habit and habitat, as well as the numerous drawings and paintings of landscapes, portraits, costumes, people, animals and plants.

Burchell was closely questioned in 1819 by a select committee of the British House of Commons about the suitability of South Africa for emigration, given his experience and knowledge of the country. It was no coincidence that the 1820 Settlers followed a year later.

He is commemorated in the monotypic plant genus Burchellia R. Br., as well as numerous specific names including Burchell’s zebra, Burchell’s coucal and the Eciton burchellii army ant.

Nicolaas Vergunst is a published author who currently is riding the crest of his most amazing book, Knot of Stone. Born in Cape Town of post-war Dutch emigrants he worked as an artist, art teacher, designer, curator and journalist. After a career with the South African national museums, now Iziko Museums of Cape Town, he resigned to write Knot of Stone and has since lived in Kiev and Kinshasa with his wife Ellen, a Dutch diplomat and historian. They live in Strasbourg today where, as the Netherland’s ambassador to the Council of Europe (CoE), she promotes the implementation of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Knot of Stone is a tale of historical detection in which two unlikely travel companions—a Dutch historian, Sonja Haas, and an Afrikaans archaeologist, Jason Tomas—find themselves drawn together after uncovering a mass-grave on the old foreshore of Cape Town. Their search for fresh evidence leads the reader further north to ancestral burial sites, remote mountain sanctuaries, sacred springs, medieval monasteries and some rare museum artefacts. Via various roadside encounters, including the startling revelations of a local sangoma (a healer empowered by the ancestors), the two travellers reconstruct the past and their own identities, with divergent consequences. As the book’s main focaliser, Sonja’s inner conflict reflects her passage from doubt (tormentoso) to hope (esperança), echoing the transition from a Cape of Storms to the Cape of Good Hope. Like Sonja’s search for herself, this story is ultimately a tale of self-discovery.

Order a copy of Knot of Stone today. It is a most engaging read.

For years, wine pairing was rarely a topic for conversation at work or between friends. These days, however, with the help of TV chefs everywhere, good food and wines are discussed and evaluated by nearly anyone. Combine this with the blinding speed of the internet, and you have a huge crop of amateur wine connoisseurs that have access to information we could only dream about not so many years ago.

The old rules for matching food and wine (white with seafood and poultry, red with red meats) no longer apply. But that doesn’t mean anything goes. Here are some valuable tips.

1. Match the texture of the food with the texture of the wine.  A light wine, whether white or red, will be overpowered by a rich dish like steak. A rich wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, will balance it perfectly. It is about matching the ‘weight’ of the food with the ‘weight’ of the wine.
2. Match aromas and flavors.  If you have a highly spiced dish, you need a wine that’s not going to get trampled by strong elements in the food. Riesling is a complex, spicy wine, so it works well with cuisines such as Chinese and Thai. An earthy pinot noir with cherry notes pairs beautifully with a duck dish containing mushrooms and dried cherries.
3. Use acidity in the wine to balance the dish. With a high-acid dish like, a salad with vinaigrette or something tomato based, you might want to complement that acidity with a high-acid wine, like a Sauvignon Blanc. In the same way that a spritz of lemon balances and brightens fried seafood, so too does a Sauvignon Blanc.
4. Pair with the sauce, not the meat. Chicken in cream sauce demands the same wine as pork in cream sauce.
5. Follow your personal preferences. For most rules there’s always an exception, so experiment with different food and wine combinations to see what your particular taste buds respond to.

This project creates an exciting new bridge between Western classical music and African-American music. With his band of virtuosos, Raphaël Imbert weaves together the common themes in the worlds of Ellington and Mozart. Making each echo to the other’s sound, he conjoins them in a musical marriage which brilliantly merges their works. Heavens is an immense modern jam session, drawing on eclectic multicultural sources: blues, chamber music, secular song, German lied, sacred music, stomp, gospel and even opera…

Inspired by both written and oral traditions, driven by improvisation and a swinging momentum, the saxophonist reveals the genius of these two great Masters. He brings to the fore their humour and their spirituality, a spirituality which at times touches the universal imagination. If their worlds combine so harmoniously, it is also because the three creators of this exceptional work, Mozart, Ellington and Imbert, are all blessed with the same innocence, the same passion, the same joy in sharing. In Heavens, the music lover is raised to a rainbow paradise where the hearts of jazz and classical music collide and beat together, and where music is as much a state of mind as a question of style. How happy are we to experience the union of this trinity!

Most rewarding has to be the reading of Das Lied der Trennung, K. 519. Mozart’s few Lieder are representative of eighteenth-century song and its tendency toward sentimental melancholy. References to tears, graves and loneliness occur often. Mozart did not seem to search hard and long for poems to set, which is probably why most of his song texts are mediocre. According to Mozart’s “List of all my Works,” “Das Lied der Trennung” (Song of Separation), K. 519, was completed on May 23, 1787, while the composer was beginning work on Don Giovanni. In “Das Lied der Trennung,” descriptions of “God’s angels weeping” and a reference to the “bewitching hour” certainly evoke less-than-pleasant images. The narrator, separated from his beloved Luisa, is afraid she will forget him. The remembrance of her on his lips makes the pain unbearable.

We were surprised and touched when Des left a copy of his very recent book Memoirs of a Minor Public Figure in the suite after they checked out. But what a book! Choc full of information on the transformation of British politics and the people behind it. As Sir Harold Evans says in the forward: “Every country needs a Des Wilson.”

Des Wilson’s career achievements include: The founding of the influential homeless charity Shelter; receiving the 1989 ITN award as ‘environmentalist of the decade’; being a member of the English Cricket Board. As well as being the author of 15 books and a journalist, public speaker, and radio and television personality, he found time to actively engage in two life-long interests, in his younger years to play cricket, and in later years to play poker. Des Wilson’s compelling memoirs, published to coincide with his 70th birthday in March 2011, will fascinate those who remember his many dynamic campaigns for social justice. They should also excite and inspire a younger generation who will discover, by reading one man’s story, just how much ordinary citizens can achieve if they decide to fight political dereliction, bureaucratic bullying, and corporate greed. The philosophies and practical strategies that helped change Britain are just as relevant today. So is his revealing account – as one of its ‘founders’ – of how the Liberal Democrats came about and how the party has developed. His intriguing history of that party and his discussion of the emergence of a coalition will enliven the current political debate.

The pages in these memoirs really do, as Peter Hennessy says “crackle and burn”. This is a two-in-one book. At one level, it is a hugely-engaging memoir of an indefatigable character who, by sheer force of personality, political instinct and a driving sense of right and wrong rose from beginnings in New Zealand to national political and social prominence in Britain. It is a life very well lived and lived with evident glee. But this is also a must-read book for anyone involved in campaigning who wants to learn from a master strategist how it should be done. And what a record of achievement he has to draw on: Shelter, lead-free petrol, protecting children from tobacco, Freedom of Information, Sunday shopping… I defy anyone to read this and not to be inspired by the energy and enthusiasm that fizz off every page or impressed the spine of integrity that runs through this book.

I know what I will be reading tonight!! Thank you Des for your wonderful generosity and choosing to stay with us.

Visit Des’s website here.

So don’t make plans between the 31st of January and the 3rd of February because you could be setting up camp just outside of Swellendam for three days and three nights of happy, happening madness. You can rock, laugh, sing and yes, get wet. And a little crazy. Maybe a lot crazy. Think of it as Woodstock. Just wetter.

Click here to see the line-up and click here to see ticket options for this year’s event. It’s one stage at a time too so you don’t have to miss out on anything. This thing isn’t just Called Up The Creek because you’re in the Breede River. There have been incidents of Ballerina flash mobs, celebrity weddings, gentlemen parading around with flaming newspapers in their rears, lobster lilo’s and countless other insane shenanigans. And that’s just the things we’re allowed to mention on our blog…

So it doesn’t matter if you have big biceps or skinny jeans, or an ironic mustache, or a non-ironic one. At Up the Creek you can be yourself, and get together. And that counts for the acts too because at Up The Creek everyone parties together and hangs out.