Compass Box Whisky Co | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

Neil Pendock, writing on his blog yesterday, knocked bloggers and food writers by applauding their absence at the inaugural Fleur du Cap 100 Places to Eat Cape Town 2011: “What made the awards cocktail party unusual was that the usual cast of thousands – journos, hacks, bloggers, twits and hangers on – was conspicuous by its absence..” Yet the ‘Awards’ were organised by ‘little Irish devil‘ (his words) blogger Clare (‘Mack’) McKeon-McLoughlin! How embarassing for sponsor Fleur du Cap, wishing to gain support from the media and bloggers for its brands, given that Pendock no doubt had an organising hand in the ‘Awards’!

Neil Pendock can be a really nice guy, as I experienced at the Compass Box Whisky Co tasting and blending afternoon a week ago. But he has a nasty side too, as poor Su Birch of WOSA well knows, being the target of regular attacks in his Pendock Uncorked Sunday Times blog. We can attest to his fierce loyalty to McKeon-McLoughlin, as he has blocked us on Twitter, due to our criticism of Cape Town Tourism’s involvement in his and McKeon-McLoughlin’s organisation of the frivolous ‘100 Women 100 Wines’ in August.

Now poor Abigail Donnelly is the next target, being the sole judge and editor of the Eat Out DStv Food Network Top 10 Restaurant Awards for the first time. This year the judging committee of Pete Goffe-Wood, Anna Trapido and Arnold Tanzer, who received a substantial remuneration, it is said, fell away, and whilst there has been some muttering about this, I have not heard any chef denigrate Mrs Donnelly because of the organisational change. The Top 20 Eat Out finalist list has been announced, and the only rumblings about it is that Rust en Vrede is not on the list, having been the winning restaurant on the Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant list last year, but its Chef David Higgs left mid-year, and that Chef Henrico Grobbelaar has not been at Azure Restaurant of the Twelve Apostles Hotel for a full twelve months, which is what the Eat Out rules dictate.

On Sunday McKeon-McLoughlin had invited some of the Fleur du Cap ‘Top 100’ restaurants and announced the following (alphabetically listed) restaurants to be the Top 10 Restaurants in Cape Town, out of an initial list of 100:

95 Keerom – Giorgio Nava.

Aubergine – Harald Bresselschmidt

Bizerca – Laurent Deslandes

Dear Me – Vanessa Marx

The Foodbarn – Franck Dangereux

The Greenhouse – Peter Templehoff

Hemelhuijs – Jacques Erasmus

Planet Restaurant at the Mount Nelson – Rudi Liebenberg

Societi Bistro – Stefan Marais

The Test Kitchen – Luke Dale Roberts

If one compares the list to the Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant Top 20 Finalist list, Azure at the Twelve Apostles Hotel, The Round House, and Nobu at the One&Only Cape Town are obvious exclusions, while The Test Kitchen, The Greenhouse, and Planet Restaurant also feature on the Eat Out Top 20 list. What makes the list above lose all credibility is the inclusion of Societi Bistro – whilst very popular amongst bloggers, who are regularly invited for lunch or dinner, and appears to be the McKeon-McLoughlin’s permanent dining room, it certainly does not feature on anyone’s top restaurant list for Cape Town! Amusing is that Aubergine fell off the Eat Out Top 20 Finalist list, whilst having been an Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant last year, and appears on the above list! A number of restaurant lovers queried its Eat Out inclusion last year. Hemelhuijs and Dear Me Foodworld are great lunch venues, but only open in the evening once a week, and therefore are not in the same league as the other restaurants on the list, which serve lunch and dinner.

Ironic too is that Cape Town has lost its reputation as a top restaurant city, this accolade now having moved to the Winelands, Stellenbosch in particular, and therefore a list focusing on Cape Town only is like only handing out a second prize! Pendock writes about the judges Bianca Coleman, Jos Baker and Anna Trapido that they are the ‘biggest culinary cannons’, an extreme exaggeration! Trapido lives in Johannesburg, and hardly would have been able to judge all 100 Cape Town restaurants, especially given the short time between conceptualisation and execution of the Fleur du Cap Restaurant list.

A request sent to Eat Out editor Abigail Donnelly for a list of the finalists in the new categories of the Eat Out Awards has surprisingly been declined, even though some restaurants on the list are ‘bragging’ about their inclusion. All eyes will be on Eat Out and Abigail Donnelly on 20 November, when the country’s Eat Out Top 10 Restaurants will be announced, in ranked order!

POSTSCRIPT 8/11: Interestingly, the Fleur du Cap website has no reference to the Top 100 Cape Town Restaurants list, nor to the Top 10 Cape Town Restaurants. The media release issued by the Fleur du Cap PR consultancy GC Communications oddly does not provide any quotes by nor contact details for the Fleur du Cap Brand Manager Danelle Kietzmann!

POSTSCRIPT 8/11: This evening I chatted to Jos Baker, one of the four judges of the Fleur du Cap Top 100 and Top 10 Places to Eat Cape Town 2011, at the Platter’s launch. I asked what the criteria for inclusion were, and she said it was to find restaurants that would ‘not be intimidating‘, ranging from the top-end to the ‘hole-in-the-wall’, to give a good spread! She told me that most of the judges’ deliberations were done via e-mail. When I asked her about Eat Out having one judge only, she said ‘no comment’. When I asked her if further regional lists would be published, she gave me a look that confirmed this, without answering directly.

POSTSCRIPT 9/11: One would have thought that the Mount Nelson Hotel’s marketing department would have known better than to have described their inclusion in the Fleur du Cap Top 10 Places to eat list as ‘a most sought after achievement’ in their November newsletter today!

POSTSCRIPT 10/11: Food24 has included a link to this blogpost in its newsletter today.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

I spent a most enjoyable afternoon yesterday as the guest of Liquidity, marketers and distributors of Compass Box Whisky Co, at the Bascule Whisky and Wine Bar at the Cape Grace Hotel, in a small group of such esteemed bloggers and writers as Neil Pendock, Siraj Savage (Life is Savage), Dan Nash (Bangers & Nash), Anel Grobler (Spit or Swallow), Paul Snodgrass (Heart FM), and Shayne Dowling (publisher of Whisky). The whisky tasting and blending competition, led by Liquidity’s Emil den Dulk, was a run-up to the Whisky Live Festival, which takes place in the Cape Town International Convention Centre from tomorrow until Friday, and in Johannesburg from 9 – 11 November.

I felt out of my depth initially, rarely drinking whisky, but gained a lot of interesting information, and learnt a lot about the whisky company I had never heard of before, and its unusual take on whisky blending. Its owner John Glaser has a wine-making background, and he has used the principles of wine-making and blending in the making of the whiskies at Compass Box too, striving for complexity and balance. Starting the company in 2000, having headed marketing at Johnnie Walker, Glaser tried to address whisky conventions, such as drinking it with or without ice, that it is a drink only for older persons, and that it can only be drunk at certain times of the day. Glaser wanted drinkers of his brands to enjoy whisky in whichever way they want to drink it, at whatever time of the day, and to appeal more broadly, especially to younger drinkers. He worked with a bar in London, called Milk & Honey, and they developed a number of cocktails, pushing the mixability of whisky. Glaser developed a reputation, by asking questions of whisky making, questioning the current ‘traditions’ which are so different to original whisky-making. He asked, for example, why caramel colouring is added to whisky. He asked why sherry casks are used for ageing. He questioned why new oak is not used. The company has gone back to the traditional and artisanal roots of whisky-making. The first blend of the Compass Box was called The Hedonism. The company’s original The Spice Tree blend was banned by the Scottish Whisky Council, but is now commercially available. The company name comes from the care and precision that goes into the making of ships’ compass boxes, which Glaser wants to reflect in the making of his products too. They add no caramel colouring and do not use chill filtration.

We not only tasted four Compass Box Whisky Co products, but were also served four food items, paired to each whisky by the Cape Grace sommelier George Novitskas. Great King Street is the entry level whisky, consisting of a blend of 50 % grain whisky, and 50 % malt whisky, of which half each of the latter was aged in American bourbon oak, and in new French oak. It derives its name from the address of the company. This whisky costs about R280, and is an everyday, easy-drinking whisky, with hints of toasty oak, vanilla and spice. It has just been launched in South Africa. It was paired with a roast lamb and sun-dried tomato crostini, a good marriage.

Oak Cross is aged in American bourbon barrels, with new French oak barrel heads, giving the whisky more complexity, and an aroma of spiciness and nuttiness, with clove, toffee and ginger notes. We tried it neat, and then with a few drops of water added, making it softer and creamier. It costs R400. It was paired with a goat’s cheese and onion marmalade vol au vent. The Spice Tree costs R450, and is darker in colour, coming from the barrelheads being charred more heavily, and having been aged for 12 – 14 years. It is more complex. It has aromas of clove, ginger, cinnamon and vanilla. It was paired with beef fillet and a bearnaise sauce, and Shayne thought that the pairing was equally successful with the vol au vent we had with the Oak Tree.

The Peat Monster is an acquired taste, being the only whisky in the range that contains peat, giving it a ‘burnt braai’ or ‘dirty ashtray’ taste. It has sweetness, richness, and due to the burnt taste, it is not popular amongst women whisky drinkers. It is heavier, and not something one can drink all night. This is the company’s biggest seller, and costs R450. We felt that the smoked salmon paired with this whisky was too light in taste for the dominant whisky taste.

The intimidating but fun part of the afternoon was blending our own whisky in teams of two, and I was lucky to have Shayne as my ‘blending master‘. We were giving measuring cups and pipettes, and four ingredients. We chose to make a blend of 50 % Heavy toasted French oak malt, 20 % Highland malt American oak, 10% Lowland grain, and 20 % water, not adding any peated malt, and chose the name ‘French Toast’ for it. But it was the ‘Equilibrium’ blend by Neil Pendock and Siraj Savage that the judges chose as the winner, having a long finish and a good nose, the judges said. The blending exercise was a good way to get one involved with the product, and to understand the blending decisions of whisky-makers in general, and of Compass Box Wine Co in particular.