When Ken Gargett first heard mention of a gin called Monkey 47, he assumed it must fall very much in the novelty category. Then he tried it and it has been his favorite gin ever since. Here Ken shares the story, more than likely a mix of fact and the apocryphal, of how Monkey 47 gin came to be. And it involves a watchmaker!
To’ak makes chocolate, but not as you know it. This is manna from heaven, or perhaps chocolate from angels. Ken Gargett takes a deep dive into what is quite possibly the world’s finest chocolate.
It was the wonderful 1975 Pol Roger that first ignited Ken Gargett’s love of great champagne. Here he looks at (and tastes) the 2012 releases and they do not disappoint: the great vintages of this century have been 2002, 2008, and perhaps now 2012!
The Henschke Hill of Grace 2015 Shiraz is a wonderful wine from a very fine vintage. In Ken Gargett’s opinion, it’s a wine with decades ahead of it. A great Hill of Grace and a brilliant example of just how great Australian wines can be. 99/100.
The always perceptive and entertaining American importer Kermit Lynch has described Château Thivin wines as resembling “a country squire who is not afraid to get his boots muddy. Handsome, virile, earthy, and an aristocrat.” And Ken Gargett agrees. The Beaujolais 2018 vintage is already being talked about as legendary, heroic, special, brilliant . . . roll out whichever superlative you like and give it a go.
Beluga vodka hails from Siberia, from the Marlinsk Distillery, which was founded in 1900. The water used is from Siberian artesian wells. Ken Gargett thinks that if James Bond was drinking Beluga’s Gold Line, he would sip it straight rather than tip it into martinis, whether shaken or stirred.
David Shrigley is not your conventional artist. He says what’s on his mind without beating around the bush. Not taking himself seriously while opening our eyes to the bigger picture is why French champagne house Ruinart commissioned the 51-year-old artist to present the champagne house in a new light as its 2020 carte blanche artist,
The Bollinger 2012 is fast gaining a reputation as one of the very best vintages of this century. Ken Gargett thinks it’s fantastic champagne, and while truly wonderful now it has a great future. 98/100. Just wow! A couple of cases of this and we would feel a lot better about an extended period of isolation!
The Montecristo No. 3 Cuban cigar is most certainly a good corona. That said, Ken Gargett confesses that it had been a few years since he had tried one. But when a friend offered him one recently, he quickly remembered why they should be in everyone’s rotation and what he had been missing.
Main Ridge Estate has been considered as producing not only some of the Mornington Peninsula’s best Pinot and Chardonnay, but some of the best anywhere in Australia, pretty much from day one. Small quantities of its wines do manage to make their way to international markets, but you’ll need to search for them. Ken Gargett explains why you might want to do just that.