It’s a temperate Wednesday night and as Melbourne trudged home, a few brave and quietly exuberant souls made their way to Franklin Street to Captain Melville for Whisky Trivia. I arrived way too early and had the distinct pleasure of meeting the lovely host and whisky extraordinaire Ren from The Whisky Social. Ren and I ruminated about the origins of the various bottles of whisky in front of us. I dropped literally the only piece of knowledge that I have about whisky, that it was a female designer who produced the iconic Nikka whisky bottle.
When we began, teams were given a few moments to come up with their names and ours drew the desired groan from our competitors. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ‘Single Malt Disney’. This name was probably my last constructive contribution to the team as we participated in several rounds of whisky-based trivia and whisky sampling. A warm and peaty thank you to the wonderful fellows at The Whisky Company who supplied the delicious liquids.
Our rocking MC and budding Melbourne comedian Ferdi Billimoria had us in stitches with some anecdotes about Ferdi’s dad’s hilarious ‘whisky business’ schtick. One of the highlights of the night was having one member from each team come up and give a story about a time they had indulged in too much whisky, with the winner receiving with a healthy dose of irony — more whisky!
As my mate and I gradually became more entranced with the various whisky offerings and gradually disengaged from the trivia we began workshopping a Harambe cocktail. (Shoutout to my teammates who, through no help from myself, placed a very respectable second.) The ingredients were as much inspired to be symbolic as they were for building a delicious flavour profile. The base is a single serve of Cafe Patron to represent the eternal struggle, then there’s a thick protective layer of banana milk to symbolise the last meal of our saviour Harambe, then there’s a sudden dash of Chambord straight through the middle of the cocktail. The glass must be salted to act as reminder of the tears that will never cease.
– Rian
Rian C. is a profoundly gifted mixologist with a mild attention deficit. He has been known to compete in pub trivia competitions under the team name ‘The French Triviera’.
For more tastings and fun whisky-related events, visit The Whisky Social’s website and Facebook page.
