A coffee liqueur created by a group of friends during the COVID months has turned heads at this year's Australian Distilled Spirits Awards.
Darkside Coffee Liqueur is the brainchild of Ross Ciavarella and Chelsea D'Aoust, of Newcastle's Sprocket Coffee Roasters, and Carl and Kelie Kenzler, of Murrays Brewing Co Distillery Team. It won a gold medal for best liqueur (other) at the awards in Melbourne last week.
The Murray's team also brought home an additional three silvers and one bronze, and made the finals for best micro batch distillery.
"Carl and I first met Chelsea and Ross 15 years ago through our Nelson Bay restaurant, Ritual," Kelie explained.
"We formed a great friendship and naturally when we decided to create a coffee liqueur we called on these fabulous people to source our fresh cold brew for Darkside.
"We love their approach to the environment, sustainability, business and community."
The Darkside branding was created in collaboration with Marx Design Co in New Zealand and is a finalist in the AGDA Design Awards 2021. Newcastle artist and graphic designer Kelly Walker Kwill Studios has also worked on Darkside, extending this branding concept with the design for the Darkside Bitters range as well as developing an amazing array of animations for Darkside.
Kelie said the past two years had been a "rollercoaster".
"Two COVID lockdowns, loads of home-schooling and massive amounts of creativity. For us COVID brought local businesses together and the best part of these two years has been these inspiring collaborations with amazing passionate people and their businesses, and we feel fortunate to have been able to be a part of these.
"We have also dabbled in collaborations with Rowena, Juliana and Angela at High Tea with Mrs Woo (First Rain - Sublime Aperitive which won a silver medal last week), the wonderful Amorelle Dempster at Hunter Valley Slow Food, Gail and Jo at Easel Art Space, Steve at Piggs Peake Winery and Holly at the Maitland Church Street Fair.
"All our creations are the melding of ideas, thoughts and taste buds from a chef/industrial designer, a scientist, a sommelier (Mitch Matalone, formerly of Ritual, who joined our team in 2020) and an entrepreneur.
"We all love coffee and wanted to create a shelf stable 'spiked' cold brew coffee that was not just another coffee liqueur but one that had a real fresh espresso coffee taste, travelled on the palate, and was connected to our community.
"We naturally turned to Chelsea and Ross at Sprocket and after many experiments we decided on their PNG cold brew.
"As we were chasing a tasting journey in a cup, we looked at different nuts and spices and found that our native wattleseed was the winner. Wattleseed is such an underrated ingredient that, depending on how it is used, can throw an array of flavours such as hazelnut, caramel and vanilla, which are traditional coffee pairings."
Read more:A chef's take on the spirits world
Murrays Brewing Co's Darkside Bitters are, she says, "the natural extension of our Darkside Coffee liqueur, a celebration of intense and unique flavours. This Darkside range showcases our obsession with coffee and how flavours enhance each other and meld together. These bitters are the syrups of the 'spiked' coffee world".
Their range includes Darkside Signature Bitters; Hot Mocha Bitters; Minty Mocha Bitters; and Dirty Hippy Bitters. I ask what makes Darkside unique.
"Complexity and travel," Kelie replies. "The concept of travel we acquired through a perfume course we took our staff to when we were running Ritual. It's finding the right layers of scent and flavour, that is, base notes that then transition to the chorus then crescendo to high notes that linger. Coffee itself has such a deep base flavour so blending ingredients like native wattleseed and a slight carry of cinnamon add a mid-section and that lingering sweet finish rather than dissipating from the palate."
Darkside is available at the Murray's cellar door or online (murraysbrewingco.com.au), Dan Murphys (Glendale, Kotara, Newcastle West, East Maitland), and Artisanal Cellars at Newcastle West.
Other local winners at the Australian Distilled Spirits Awards were: Newy Distillery (one gold, one silver); Earp Distilling Co. (one gold, three silver); Styx Brewery (one silver, one bronze); and The Farmers Wife Distillery (three silver, one bronze).
Restaurant launch
Still at Murray's ... Restaurant William launches on Saturday at the Salt Ash brewery with a three-course set menu. Sitting times are: Wednesday and Thursday, lunch from noon; Friday and Saturday, lunch from noon, dinner from 6pm; and Sunday, lunch from noon.
A Night for Amber
Central Leagues Club in Charlestown is hosting A Night for Amber this Saturday, December 11, from 6.30pm. The Hughes family of Belmont would love to see you there. They were hit for six when doctors discovered an inoperable tumour on Amber's brain stem several months ago, which was diagnosed as Diffuse Midline Glioma.
Amber is undergoing trials and treatments to slow the tumour's growth however the process is costly.
You can help by buying a ticket to Saturday's fundraiser. Tickets are $120 each or $1100 for a table of 10 and include a two-course meal and three-hour drink package, plus live music from GenR8. Email functions@centralleagues.com.au or phone 4943 6622.
Fine Food Award winners
Hungerford Meat Co returned from the 2021 Sydney Fine Food Show last week with a swag of medals.
Fourteen, to be exact.
The Branxton team won gold for their smoked free-range boneless ham and for their Mr Charcuterie chilli and fennel lonza (eye loin of pork).
Anna Bay's Pasta Di Porto also performed well, bringing home 11 medals.
Read more:Southern Italian traditions live on at Pasta Di Porto
Their highest rating medal winner was the gold medal-winning mushroom, roast garlic, truffle oil and buffalo ricotta ravioli, which judges scored 90 (out of 100), followed by the silver medal-winning smoked egg linguine (86.67).
Other local winners were Newcastle's Pudding Lady (bronze medal); and Boutique Sauces Gillieston Heights (one gold, four bronze).
