Transcript
Speaker: Cause I think that, you know, in the spirits industry for so many years, we were disconnected from the producers because so much of what we drink in Australia is imported. So we weren't really considering where is the grain grown and all that kind of stuff. But you know, now we have this amazing homegrown industry. And so what I really wanted to do in my writing, you know, with stuff like Burdekin and the gospel was really try to connect those products to the actual land where the agricultural produce is grown. Cause that's, you know,
Speaker: That's where the quality and the character comes from.
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Speaker: Welcome to the Full Measure podcast, everyone. Today, we are very lucky to be joined by Fred Siggins, bartender extraordinaire, writer. I don't have enough titles to actually describe all of the things that you do. um Welcome, mate. Fantastic to have you with us. Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker: And we've we're here for a special occasion because... Fred, you know among the several thousand things you do around the drinks trade, you have published this extraordinary book, which we're happy to talk about today. Happy to have in front of me for people who can see ah Equal Parts Cocktails published originally, or maybe you can speak to us about the sort of publishing journey of it. um Where did it come about? Where was it first published? And how did all how did it all begin for you with this?
Speaker: ah Yeah. um So originally this book was published in the US. It was an American project through 10 Speed publishers out of New York, which is an imprint of of Random House. I was really grateful that they actually called me and said, hey, do you want to we have this idea for um a really simple, easy to understand cocktail guide for home bartenders. yep Do you want to help us out by sort of researching and writing it? um So what you have in front of us now is actually the Australian edition. the ah
Speaker: The American edition was originally published over there a couple of months ago. um And the Australian edition was just released in late July via Hardy Grant. So Hardy Grant is publishing in Australia in the UK.
Speaker: Fantastic, mate. Love the Hardie Grant folks. And congratulations, mate. Thank you. It's a huge effort. I know, you know, having, we've both been through the process and we know are the ins and outs of it, the back end. And it's, ah it's always special when you finally get to hold the thing in your hands and and start talking about it. So. Absolutely. It's pretty, it's pretty crazy to actually see it, you know, physically there and and on the shelf and,
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's pretty exciting. Yeah, fantastic. So, well, talk to us about, so when they approached you, your spitballing ideas, they obviously had some ideas about it. How did you come to figuring out exactly the approach that you wanted to take? And you've absolutely nailed it. I think um it's such a refreshing, beautiful read, but talk to us about, I guess, the the the thematics of it um and what you're hoping bartenders everywhere, both at home and hopefully but behind the bar as well. I know, I'll use it. What are hoping they'll get out of it? Well, it was interesting because when they first sort of came to me with the idea, obviously I was super flattered to be asked to ah to work with such a well-respected publisher. um
Speaker: But there was part of me initially that was kind of like, oh, I don't know if this is really my bag because, you know, I really like to get in depth with things. And anyone who knows my writing knows that I like to dig into history and tell stories and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: But then I started thinking about it and I was like, well... You know, obviously the Negroni is hugely popular. That's an equal parts cocktail. Um, we're sort of going through a bit of a retro revival with things like the Cosmo and the Japanese slipper and the espresso martini and, you know, Japanese slippers and equal parts cocktail. The original way that I was taught, you know, 15, 20 years ago, starting behind the bar, how to make an espresso martini and a Cosmo was equal parts. Like that was the first recipe that I learned.
Speaker: And I was thinking, you know, Oh, actually, Sam Ross over at Attaboy in New York has got some amazing equal parts recipes like the paper plane. yeah And actually the equal parts martini is kind of having a moment right now. So the more I thought about it, the more I thought, oh, I think I can do this in a way that's going to achieve what they want of being a really easy, simple guide for home bartenders that have never picked up a shaker.
Speaker: but also do it in a way that I think is true to, ah i suppose, the craft of bartending. Yeah, right. Yeah, and and I think there's, you know, I think there's 50 really fun recipes in there that that one way or another have have hopefully nailed the brief, you know. Definitely, mate, definitely. We might get into the recipes in a little bit, but like definitely would love to, I think at one stage we'll get you in for the full Fred Siggins tour because there's a lot, there's a freaking lot to cover with how much you've done. But I mean, your background starting in hospitality, I want to give us a bit of background there because that obviously helps to inform how you've approached this as well.
Speaker: Sure. Well, I started out in kitchens when I was 16 years old, just as a kitchen hand, dishy. And this was over in the US. I went to high school and university in the US, yeah mostly in New York. And I started working in kitchens just because I needed money. Cash. Yeah. yeah um And, you know, I ended up probably spending more time and energy on the hospitality side of things than I did on my studies. I didn't manage to make it through. But yeah, you know, hospitality just really...
Speaker: It's always been kind of under my skin as soon as I was in that environment, being surrounded by food and flavor and nights out and people having a good time. yeah It really just kind of stuck with me. um So I moved from the kitchen to the bar really in my mid-20s. So I maybe came to the bar side of things a little bit later than Which you'd never know. Like having worked with you and seeing you behind the stick, like I never knew that, especially like thinking you back to Black Pearl, I would have never thought that that was, you know, you were still, I guess, fresh compared to some of the guys were probably in it since their late teens, early 20s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very fresh to it, really. I'd only been bartending for a few years when I started working at Black Pearl. And so I was, you know, super, super nervous starting at that job. But...
Speaker: um Didn't show. Bloody hell. Thank you. I'm glad it didn't. ah But yeah, so, you know, had a really, really fun time bartending for, you know, what, 10, 12 years altogether. um And then from there moved more to sort of...
Speaker: education, branding, consultancy, marketing, you know, wanting getting to that point where I was a little bit, a little bit kind of broken by 1am behind the stick. So I've needed to start moving into a more, uh, nine to five kind of realm. and a walkerwell Exactly. Um, and during that time, uh, that's when I also kind of started writing seriously, um, doing, uh, pub reviews for timeout Melbourne back when, and into them back when they used to publish a pub guide every year, which was great. So I wrote a few of those.
Speaker: um Yeah. And, and from then I've just, uh, Tried to write as much as possible and, you know, take my own photos for most of the projects. Not this one. These photos are by the amazing um Christopher Paulson, yeah who's one of the best hospitality photographers in the country. So it was really, really lucky to be able to work with him for this project. Yeah. Fantastic. And also ah Priscilla um from Spoon and Ladle.
Speaker: Oh yeah. yeah Amazing. Yeah. she She helped me out with some of the styling, which is why those garnishes are much better than anything that I could achieve on my own. They look amazing. Photos like, yes, when you buy the book, which everyone will, I'm sure, um then you'll see it. Like, it's such a beautiful publication. It's been so well put together. um And obviously, the experience behind the bar, I think it absolutely shows in the book. And maybe you could talk about sort of the audience that you have in mind here because I think you speak to that audience brilliantly and you do such a great job at keeping people, I guess, informed and, you know, across the the details, the nitty-gritty that, I guess, bartenders are always interested in. But it's still really fun, fresh, and approachable. And that's why... you know reading through it a couple of times I'm just like, oh oh my God, it's such an amazing, beautiful book that I will be gifting to people. so I'm glad to hear it. um Yeah, no, I think that it's very much aimed at home bartenders, right? The idea is that like, if you've never picked up a jigger before, if you've never picked up a shaker, if you don't even know what a mixing glass is, this is maybe the first book that you should pick up. yeah Hopefully there's some fun recipes and stories and stuff like that that would be, I guess, engaging for everyone regardless of their level of experience. But the idea is to really break down
Speaker: how cocktails are constructed and to try to take away all of the sort of complex formulas that certain cocktails can have. And, and, you know, again, some of these recipes are not exactly how I would make them if I were working in a craft cocktail bar yeah where I had the time to like craft everything down to the 0.5 of a mil. That's not the intention here. The intention here is to do something that's like fast and easy and where you understand what each of the components does to the drink. yeah Um,
Speaker: Because a big part of it is I wanted people to be able to switch things out and modify the drinks yeah to their own tastes, right? Because that's obviously something that we do behind the bar. Do you like your margaritas a little bit sweeter, a little bit more on the sour side?
Speaker: So hopefully throughout the book, there's advice on how to modify each of the drinks and also to not necessarily feel like you have to go out and spend $3,000 on esoteric ingredients. There's a lot of stuff in there that's like, right, if you don't have a bottle of vodka, this will work with gin or white rum. yeah If you don't have a bottle of whiskey, this will work with brandy or with, you know, Anejo tequila.
Speaker: Trying to make people understand that there are certain like building blocks to the cocktails that they can use. And hopefully then this 50 recipes actually becomes 500 recipes once you start playing around with it. Yeah, great, great. And in terms I guess, you know, the Australian style thing, obviously our focus here is Australian spirits. So...
Speaker: there are some We're gonna talk about some beautiful cocktails that you've sort of designed for us specifically, but it's very simple for you to just switch in things based on your knowledge and your obviously extensive experience with with the Aussie spirits world as well. So maybe you wanna talk us about a couple of those recipes and I guess the process there and how, you know whether it's Australian ingredients or any other ingredient, you can easily sort of swap things in to make them work for you.
Speaker: Absolutely. So ah probably the most, you know, the the first chapter of the book is all about really famous cocktails that everybody knows. yeah And I think that the equal parts cocktail that comes to mind instantly for anyone would probably be the Negroni, right? So the classic Negroni recipe just being a shot each of gin, campari and sweet vermouth.
Speaker: um There are myriad options to make that drink using only Australian products because we have so many great gins and so many great Amari and so many great vermouths, but a lot of those can be quite full on in flavor, whereas the traditional Negroni is quite a... um You know, it's quite a tight sort of direct cocktail. It doesn't necessarily have a huge, uh, it doesn't have to taste like potpourri, right?
Speaker: So choosing what Australian products to use in the Negroni can be a little bit tricky. Uh, but I think it can absolutely be done. And my favorite way to do it is to use just a good, clean London dry style, like maybe MGC or Nevernever. Beautiful.
Speaker: um And then I always reach for the Marionette Bitter Curacao as my Campari replacement yeah because it's just clean and the right amount of bitterness. And then i actually think that the 78 degrees red vermouth is probably my favorite to use for Negroni that I just want to taste like pretty clean and traditional. Beautiful. So yeah, that's one of my kind of favorite examples because I think it can get a little confusing and modeled if you choose the wrong ones. yeah yeah But yeah, that's that's a really great way to do it. Yeah, definitely. And mate, that's going to be such ah an amazing little experiment for people to play around with at home. We're going to put that one up on the website, ah your interpretation of it plus the last word if you really want to sort of ramp things up a little bit. um But please get out and purchase this book. It's we're getting a little bit closer towards Christmas gifting time. So that is that is the spot for me. um Yeah, and Fred's going to join us for the second half of our chat today to talk about the news of the week. But, um mate, thank you so much. And please get out and buy this book. It's absolutely fantastic. And we'll be back in a moment to sort of cover off on Spirits News. Sounds good.
Speaker: Good day everyone, as you may well be aware, Australian rum is having its moment in the sun right now and we're delighted to partner with Nil Desperandum, Australia's most decorated rum distillery based up on the Sunshine Coast, to launch a new monthly series here on the podcast. It's called Bar Shout and we'll be celebrating and shining a spotlight on some of the best bars around Australia right now. um Luke, we're kicking it off with one of your suggestions. we are going to be opening this up to the floor, or I should say the nation. from from now on in, but um you were keen to, ah to i guess, you know, celebrate one particular venue right now.
Speaker: Yes. So Bar Bellamy and Melita Next Door run by Oscar and Danny White Hart, absolute legends of the trade. It's such a beautiful venue. It, you know, does what it does really well is it elevates food and spirits and cocktails. It brings them all together, very Melbourne style in that fashion. um And Oscar in particular has a lot of experience with Australian spirits having haven't previously worked at Bad Frankie. so So it's a great,
Speaker: a great bar in terms of what they stock. It's got a European international outlook with some fantastic Australian spirits and some fantastic rums behind the bar as well. So if you haven't been, check it out. Absolutely beautiful spot and great supporter of producers as well. And you say Melbourne, but for those that haven't been, where will they find Bar Bellamy? Yeah, they're on Ratdown Street in Carlton. They also have an incredible food offering. So go in there, have some delicious food, pair that with some wonderful drinks have great Sounds great, Luke. I feel we should be jumping on PT or into an Uber and heading straight over there as soon as we're done here today. Looking ahead, we'll just say thanks to Neil Desperandum for getting behind this Bar Shout series. We'll be running these every month on the podcast.
Speaker: We'd love to hear your suggestions. You can send them to us at cheersatthefullmeasure.com.au. I'm sure you've got plenty of ideas to share, Luke, but if we can yeah if we can get some other ideas, and that'd be great. We'd love to hear from you. Cheersatthefullmeasure.com.au.
Speaker: If you haven't yet tried any of Nildesperandum's amazing rums, they've got some great deals on their award-winning drinks right now nildesperandum.com.au. And we'll see with another one of these in a few weeks' time. Cheers.
Speaker: Cheers.
Speaker: At The Full Measure, we're all about encouraging you to try something local for your next spirits purchase. That's why we've teamed up with many of Australia's favourite local distillers to offer our podcast listeners exclusive online discounts for first-time customers.
Speaker: Take Ballerine Distillery, where Russ Watson and Larell Warren transformed an old chicken farm into the Geelong region's first distillery since the nineteen eighty s Now it's home to Teddy and the Fox, Bellarine Gin and Kestrel, named Best Australian Single Malt at the 2024 Melbourne Royal Australian Distilled Spirits Awards.
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Speaker: Find Bellarine and plenty more in the distillery directory at thefullmeasure.com.au forward slash directory. Alrighty folks, we're back here talking Australian Spirits News with Fred Siggins, the author of this brilliant book which we just chatted about. um And the thing that's just broken really very recently is I guess the awards results at the Sydney Royal Distilled Spirits Show. was lucky to be up there and judging Marionette, which we see right here. I have it right here in my hands there. Barry took out basically Best in Show, which is fantastic. We had a bunch of other really cool spirits. I know you're super familiar with the Marionette folks. Yeah, well-deserved win for them. Not not surprising. Yeah. And I mean, this is basically, I guess, the last show awards of the year. is something that we do a fair bit in terms of the spirits judging. And it's pretty fascinating how it's all developing there. I mean, there's been some great wins for St. Agnes, for, mean, Fleurieu wins again, their country to coast. I mean, yeah. So certainly there's something going on there with that whiskey when you put it in front of judges blind. But um yeah, it's pretty fascinating to see the the show system develop around. You've done some judging in Adelaide as well, I believe, South Australia in the past. Yeah, yeah I've done the Tasting Australia Awards a few times. yeah um
Speaker: Yeah, I did Sydney last year, not this year, unfortunately. But yeah, I've done the Melbourne Awards many, many times over the years. Yeah, cool. um Yes, fascinating to see how it's going. Obviously, um get around these products, check out the results, check out some of the results that we've also covered over the last month or two. It's ah yeah it's really it's a fascinating side of the industry and congratulations to everyone who's doing really well getting their products in front of some fantastic judges and yeah, hopefully... I'm encouraging more people to do the same. So yeah, beautiful. And other thing I would love to talk to you, of course, I'm gonna try and extract as much out of Fred as I can while he's here. um We published a RUM piece earlier in in the week, a big RUM feature on sort of what's happening in RUM in Australia right now. And the feedback has been amazing. It's starting to get spread sort of internationally as well. And so I know some of the pieces that you've written previously as well have had and a lot of sort of international press Because yeah know it's such a connected industry when you look at, I guess, everything about, I guess, the agricultural side of of rum production and the identity that you get across different places and styles and whatever. And so i know, and there are some incredible photographs that Fred has, i think it was across Boothby, that you published this incredible rum piece. So Fred's been there during harvest, gone to all of these incredible distilleries up north. What was your experience of sort of, yeah, being there when it was all happening during an harvest? Yeah, so I was really lucky to go up to far north Queensland to visit the Burdekin Rum Distillery and ah also to do the sort of Burdekin Shire cane cutting festival, yeah which is really cool, where they're like, the the night before, they burn off the cane in the sort of traditional way. And so you get these amazing images of just these like... Cane fields lit up in the night um in that beautiful sort of ah tropical night sky with the stars overhead. and yeah um
Speaker: And then the um folks all come in the next day and have a hand cane cutting competition. So it's everything from these sort of like 18, 19 year old boys who are just sort of full of vim and vigor right through to these blokes in their 60s and 70s that have been still doing it, you know, their their whole lives and ah and are just...
Speaker: in there covered in soot covered in grime wow so yeah some pretty amazing imagery came out of that um and obviously ah pretty amazing when you sort of see it in the place where it actually comes from i think people a lot of people forget that australia is a tropical sugarcane growing island yeah and so we have every right to call ourselves um a really serious rum producing nation and i think we're starting to see that in some of the craft products that are coming through Yeah, wicked. And we have, I'm putting up a tasting on some of the rums that I'm loving at the moment that I'd encourage you to check out and of course get out and have a taste of. Some of the stuff that you're loving at the moment, mate, talk to us about some of the rums from Australia that are really impressing you right now. Well, the stuff that I think is really impressing me is the agricole style, which is the style of rum that is made from fresh pressed cane juice rather than being made from molasses, which I suppose is a more common way of making rum. yeah And so that agricole style, you just get to taste a lot more of the terwa of the rum itself because it's not been sort of over-processed. You're just talking about fresh cane juice.
Speaker: and a lot of it's wild fermented. So you're talking about whatever specific yeast strains happen to exist in that environment. So it's husk and Burdekin that are really sort of exciting me at this point. And I love that like big, funky, uh, like really sort of tropical, ah incredibly complex style that both of those distilleries are creating, especially in their unaged products. yeah yeah Um, yeah,
Speaker: and But they're actually quite dry as well, which I think is great. And it makes them outstanding for cocktail work. Like if you're making a daiquiri with either of those white rums or you're making any kind of sort of tropical punch drink with some of the aged versions, they're just, they're going to be amazing. Yeah, right. Anything you could adapt from the book.
Speaker: Absolutely. So, one of my favorite recipes in the book is a jungle bird, which I always ah call, it's a, you know, it's a tropical punch, but for people who don't like sweet things, because a lot of those traditional tropical punches are quite sort of heavy on the sugar. yeah So, ah because it has campari in it, you get this really beautiful sort of bittersweet balance happening. Yeah. and also an amazing color and it's got pineapple juice which gives you this beautiful fluffy texture but you can absolutely do it with so i would do it if i was making an australian version i would do it with um like ah one of the aged burdekin rums and the marionette bit of curacao instead of campari a bit of bit of lime juice bit of pineapple juice and it's it's going to be amazing yeah so a super simple and easy version of one of those kind of tropical rum punches that's just a real crowd pleaser Yeah, definitely. And having talked to some of the Husk guys ah through the week as well, um some of the other distillers who have looked at this piece, and I guess we're starting here to talk about rum style and all that. um I think cocktails are such a great suggestion when it comes to particularly um the fresh cane styles because what their feedback to me is that certainly people out there, like if you're just in general rum consumer land, if you're familiar with rum and Coke and you're trying to go well, how can i you know explore this new territory?
Speaker: Sometimes the neat experience is just way too much for people. But as soon as they mix it, it's like, okay, I get it now. Is that sort of what you found a little bit as well? No, absolutely. Like I tend to want my daiquiris to be made on agricole style white rum. Like that's just my favorite.
Speaker: And again, because it's a dry style, you can balance it by just putting as much sugar in as you want. Yeah. You know, um ah but to me with ah with a daiquiri, you just get like all the complexity of that style and you can really sort of...
Speaker: experience um yeah all the the complexity and the beauty of that rum without a lot of other ingredients getting in the way but it's still a really refreshing and easy drinking way to enjoy them yeah fantastic i love it well yes check out uh the feature if you haven't yet uh jump onto the tasting that we've got up to it's a lot of fun hopefully you find something there ah that you love and enjoy uh and thanks for thanks for your perspective there mate i can't i'm gonna be up there later in the year and i'm gonna try and you know get to as many distilleries as i can and check it out it's such a such a cool side of the industry and it's exploding, which is awesome. So that's it. It's stunning country up there. That's it.
Speaker: And the last one that we want to talk about today was the gospel. So we've got some fantastic listings coming in for measure. We'll be publishing more next week and the week after, which is awesome. Thank you so much for your support. we really appreciate it. Now one that we've just put up, it's going to be up online. You'll be able to see it when we, when this chat goes live, it's a distillery that we're both very familiar with. Um, We've basically got the the gospel coming on as one of our listings, which we're super happy with. Andrew, thank you so much. And to the team. it's a
Speaker: If you're into rye whiskey, as Fred and I massively are, like without any exaggeration, this is some of the best rye whiskey produced anywhere in the world. Absolutely. I guarantee you that. Go and look at the scores and everything else. But like if you love rye whiskey, if you love grain forward whiskey, if you love complex whiskey... especially at a decent price. um This is the stuff that you should be trying and getting behind. um I can't recommend them more highly. Fred has done some amazing riding with Andrew. Do you want to talk us to the experience of going to the place where, you know, the rye grain um that makes this delicious white rye whiskey is grown? um Your experience there amazing. Absolutely. You know, was lucky enough. Well, I basically sort of bullied Andrew into driving me into driving me up to the Mallee so that I could meet his rye farmer and take some pictures and stuff. Because I think that, you know, in the spirits industry for so many years, we were disconnected from the producers because so much of what we drink in Australia is imported.
Speaker: So we weren't really considering where is the grain grown, all that kind of stuff. But, you know, now we have this amazing homegrown industry. And so what I really wanted to do in my writing, you know, with stuff like Burdekin and the gospel was really try to connect those products to the actual land where the agricultural produce is grown. Because that's, you know, that's where the quality and the character comes from.
Speaker: um The rye grain that we grow in Australia is amazing and it's unique. Yeah. um And seeing that country, seeing this basically like semi-arid desert earth where we're like extracting these beautiful grains from somehow and then turning them into this amazing whiskey. Yeah, it's it's pretty cool to see. um Yeah, and I do want people to understand that when they're buying these products, they really are supporting a side of Australian agriculture that gets overlooked. Definitely. No, that's spot on, mate. Yeah, we cannot recommend them.
Speaker: more highly. ah So jump on, have a read, of course, try and get there out there and have a taste. It's also a great cocktail whiskey as well and at a great price too. So easily sort of jumps into any of your Rye Ford cocktails. Cannot recommend them more highly. So if you if you wanted to make a Manhattan using all Australian products, that there is a recipe in the book and it's absolutely it's absolutely doable with the gospel.
Speaker: Yes, fantastic. Love it. All right. Well, I feel like we've ticked a lot of boxes here today, man. And look, it's such a huge pleasure to have you in and congrats again on what is a fantastic publication. And please get out there, support it, um get behind it and definitely mix up some of the drinks in there. i'm going to be doing so this weekend. Cannot wait. But other than that, Fred, I'll make i'll sign up and say thank you so very much. Absolute pleasure to have you in.
Speaker: Thank you for having me. And thank you for listening along. Obviously, like, share, subscribe, jump onto thefullmeasure.com.au. If you have any feedback or anything you'd like us to cover, send me a mail at luke at thefullmeasure.com.au. And thanks so much for listening in. Cheers. See you next week.
Speaker: The Full Measure podcast is produced and edited by Matt Hoffman. For all partnership inquiries, reach out to c Craig Williams, craig at thefullmeasure.com.au. To keep up to date with everything happening in Australian spirits, visit thefullmeasure.com.au and subscribe.
