Craft drinks boom sparks fresh flavours
Lately, retail analysts have observed a change in shopping trends as consumers show a preference for handmade or bespoke products as opposed to uniform, mass-produced items prevalent everywhere.
Noticing this changing trend in 2010, consulting firm Artlogic launched the first FoodWineDesign show, now called The Sanlam Handmade Contemporary Fair. At the time, the show became renowned as Africa’s first event to combine the best crafters of food, wine and design under one roof. Since then, it has grown from 50 exhibitors to 120 last week at Hyde Park Mall, where it attracted thousands of wine and spirits lovers over three days.
Mandla Sibeko, director at Artlogic, said the fair’s success is the result of it carving out a reputation for bringing together the best of Africa’s artisans.
“Africa is an incubator for ingenuity, which reflects in the diversity of our entrepreneurs. These are the people we invest in, by providing a trade-on-site platform that reaches an interested public,” he said.
This year, the highlight was the presence of a coterie of craft gin distillers led by women. The women’s challenge to the old style of making gin – like London’s dry gin – is complemented by a drive to make the spirit more inclusive to accommodate other drinkers who prefer softer and flavoured offerings.
This is the kind of gin Shanna-Rae Wilby of Time Anchor Distillery, situated at the trendy Maboneng Precinct in downtown Joburg, is producing daily, to rave acclaim.
Her gin brims with botanicals like juniper, coriander and angelica, and their liquid shimmers with blue and pink colours to appeal to tipplers of both sexes.
The most alluring of her range of three gins is Pink Mirari, in which Wilby has added a botanical imported from Thailand to the spirit, for an effect similar to liquid bath soap.
Hope on Hopkins gin, owned by Lucy Beard, which was one of the most visited stalls, flies the flag for the spirit from its Cape Town location.
Like Wilby, Beard is on a mission to give the gin an effeminate quality to show its versatility. Other than the London dry gin style, Beard makes a superb aromatic spirit called Salt River Gin, which has a savoury, almost neutral palate complemented by an infusion of buchu and Cape snowbush plant flavours.
Of course, wine is very much a regular feature at the event and this year billed just as prominently, with the Graham Beck sparkling wine stand keeping the mood bubbly among the visitors.