This month, the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club marries three unique Cape artisanal businesses, and hosts Jorgensen’s Savignac Potstill Brandy and Honest Chocolate, at coffee merchants and art and design specialists Haas Collective.
Jorgensen’s Distillery is in Wellington, and Dawn Jorgensen has been a faithful
attendee of the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meetings, having briefly introduced their Primitiv Vodka to members last year. Their portfolio of handcrafted spirits has since grown, to include Jorgensen’s Gin, Field of Dreams Absinthe, Naked Lemon Limoncello, Naked Lime Liqueur, and the Savignac Potsill Brandy. Roger Jorgensen lovingly handcrafts the spirits products with passion, hard work and endeavour. Dawn handles Marketing and Sales, and is an ardent user of Social Media.
Honest Chocolate opened for business earlier this year, handcrafting their organic chocolate. Both owners Anthony Gird 
and Michael de Klerk are passionate about chocolate, and evolved from experimenting with raw cocoa powder. Anthony is a self-taught chocolate maker, and was joined by Michael, who had similarly experimented with chocolate making in London. Last month they opened their first shop, on Wale Street, and manufacture and sell from this outlet. They also have a representative in Johannesburg, supplying outlets and they have a stand at the new Neighbourgoods Market there. They Blog and Tweet, in-between their chocolate making.
The Haas Collective is ever-evolving, with its Haas Coffee Collective, Haas Communications Collective, Haas Design Collective, and Haas Gallery Collective, four businesses that have Capetonians raving, the coffee shop having become a firm favorite of many, the only outlet serving Kopi Lawak coffee in South Africa. Coffee is supplied from Strictly Coffee in Robertson.
They also serve breakfasts, lunches and cakes, seven days a week. Haas uses Twitter to entice followers into their emporium. Haas is owned by Francois Irvine and Glynn Venter.
The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club was formed to reflect the tremendous growth in and power of food and wine blogs in forming opinion about food, restaurants and wines. Most bloggers do not have any formal training in blogging, and learnt from others. The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club aims to foster this informal training, and to serve as a social media networking opportunity.
Dawn and Roger Jorgensen, as well as Anthony and Michael will each speak for about half an hour about their businesses, and the role that Social Media plays in them, and there will be product tastings too. The meeting will be held in the Haas Gallery. The Club gives fledgling as well as experienced bloggers the opportunity to learn from each other and to share their knowledge with others. Attendees can ask questions, and get to know fellow bloggers. The Club meetings are informal and fun.
Future Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meetings have been organised as follows:
* 12 November: Visit to new Leopard’s Leap tasting room and cookery school in Franschhoek
Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club, Wednesday 19 October: Haas Collective, 67 Rose Street, corner Church Street, Bo-Kaap, Cape Town. Bookings can be made by e-mailing Chris at whalecot@iafrica.com. The cost of attendance is R100. Twitter: @FoodWineBlogClu Facebook: click here.
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What a trinity of tremendousness! Am interested… just need to know what time on Wednesday it’s scheduled to start. Thank you, Scarlet
Love your alliteration Scar*let!
The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club runs from 6 – 8 pm at Haas Coffee on Wednesday 19 October.
Chris
So glad to hear it’s taking place in the evening – I was worried about my ability to quaff brandy first thing. Coffee and chocolate, certainly – I need more than gentle persuasion (or blogging) to get me to ingesting alcohol before the noon gun’s gone off(unless we’re taking Echinaforce). Yay! Now I just have to juggle my schedule and hopefully I’ll see you there…