Starring day arrives for Great Taste, and celebrity juice
Tuesday, August 1st, is Results Day for the Great Taste Awards, an independently owned awards scheme for food and drink products rewarded pure and simply upon how they taste. Marketing, packaging, and food/drink pairing are all ignored, with products being judged blind.
Over several weeks in spring and early summer, over 500 judges gather in south London near Borough Market and Gillingham in Dorset, with occasional days out for specialist tasting in Bournemouth and east London. For the past few years I have been one of the 500 or so judges drawn from a pool of people working in food from writers (Felicity Cloake/ The Guardian, and Karen Barnes / Delicious magazine, Jackie Bellafontaine/ Recipes Made Easy, and Ruth Nieman) to writers/ chefs (Julie Friend), producers (Dhruv Baker /Tempus Foods); PR executives (AJ Sharp, Sharp Relations), to buyers from Selfridges, product developers from Marks & Spencer, and others including Jane Sanderstrom (Riedl glasses) and Bill Buckley (BBC presenter). The awards are organised by the Guild of Fine Food.
During the day, we taste around 50 products, from charcuterie, bread and granola to kombucha, fermented green Kampot pepper and lemon crema flummery (a mix of jelly and evaporated milk).
Products are awarded three (exquisite), two (outstanding) or one star (simply delicious). Each product is judged by several people with different palettes and experiences to give the best assessment of a product's taste, an ephemeral concept, yes, but worthy of judgment.
You'll spot the award-winning products on the shelves with their black and gold stickers. For example, it's a helpful guide to foods if you're unsettled by the choice offered. Once in Heraklion, Crete, I chose a bottle of pomegranate molasses because it had a two-star sticker. The label was written in Greek, a language in which in know about three words - Yassou/ hello; Efcharisto/ thank you and Parakalo/ please.
Check out the Great Taste Awards 2023 winners here.
For a selection of award winning citrus-flavoured products see:
The Artisan Kitchen (marmalades)
Anassa Organics (herbal teas)
Fabulous Ice Fires (flummery & gelato)
CELEBRITY DRINKS
Botanicals & Emma Watson
A few years ago, I set up a website called Starring Wines. It had dazzling life, albeit brief. I had been inspired by my year living in Italy, studying food culture, and drinking lots of wine at the University of Gastronomic Sciences (UNISG.it). The year was 2019, pre-Covid. I noticed a rush of musicians, movie stars, writers and other creatives buying into wine and spirit brands. I tried rosé wine from Australia made in partnership with the pop princess herself, Kylie Minogue, a sauvignon blanc from TV host and Eurovision host Graham Norton and a bottle of Aviation gin from movie star Ryan Reynolds.
Based in Portland, Oregon, Aviation benefited from its brief investment from the charismatic and quirky actor, selling the company in 2020 for a cool $610m (€554m). Ryan maintains an 'active ownership interest' in the brand and has promoted it in his films. The gin is made to appeal to an American palette, with a London Dry base. It is "based on a 'Botanical Democracy' Aviation Gin has a balance of flavours rather than being dictated by juniper'. In the crowded gin world, this balance is popular with bartenders and gintenders and drinkers seeking flavours in cocktails.
So in this new regular feature, I shall take a quick look at various celebrities who may or may not drink alcohol but have segwayed into the corporate world of wine, beer, spirits and non-alcoholic drinks.
Pressed grapes, zesty citrus notes and movie stars
First up is Emma Watson, actress, model and now winemaker. Emma's best-known film roles include Hermione in the Harry Potter movies, Sam in Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring and Meg March in Little Women (2019), directed by Greta Gerwig (Barbie, 2023). Emma has launched Renais, a company making gin using … from Burgundy, France and distilling it in England.
She's working with her brother Alex (ex-Diageo), and father, Chris. The family planted vines in the Chablis region at Domain Watson three decades ago and is now a multi-award winner producer and Chablis ambassador to the UK. Some of Domaine Watson's pressed Grand Cru, salvaged wineskins and lees are used to produce the base spirit. Other botanicals include lemon and lime peel, angelica root, linden flowers, cubeb berries, acacia honey, coriander and, of course, juniper. The drink is steeped in Kimmeridge stone, taken from the land of Chablis. This gives both the region's wine, and Renais gin their minerality. I haven't tasted it yet, but I am told it balances 'the minerality of a Chablis wine with fresh citrus and juniper, warming spices, floral notes and a hint of sweetness.
You can buy the gin here www.renais.co.uk
Grand Cru Negroni
A white negroni made with Renais Small Batch Gin, aromatised white wine and gently spicy liqueur.
40ml Renais Gin
30ml Lillet rose
10ml Suze gentian liqueur
Make at home
Add all your ingredients into a mixing glass, fill to the brim with large chunks of clear, quality ice, stir with the end of a spoon for 20 seconds to chill and dilute.
Pour over a large block of ice (melts slowly, slowing dilution).
(Recipe © Renais)
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Bruce McMichael
Writer, Podcaster, Educator
Website:Â www.thelemongrove.net
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Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org