Tuesday 28 January 2014

2013 Trip to Tasmania - Day 2 - Shot Tower

We came there for scones. Olga read someone's review which held the scones served in the Shot Tower cafe in the highest regard. It took us a while to figure out how to order them as they were not on the menu. We were looking for scones but what we needed was Devonshire Tea. I am glad we sorted it out because missing those scones would be a tragedy. I could write another paragraph describing them, but this post is not intended for Google+ Food Porn community. Keeping it short and sweet, they were addictive. If that alone was not enough, the raspberry jam served with the scones was the best one I've ever bought. In retail it is known as Steph's Kitchen brand and I couldn't leave that place without a jar of it.

Saturday 18 January 2014

2013 Trip to Tasmania - Day 2 - MONA and Moorilla

That day our first destination was going to please my wife rather than me - we were going to MONA, Museum of Old and New Art. It was mostly known for N rather than for O, and I, being no fan of modern visual arts, expected to spend our time there with "Yes, darling" mask on my face. However, I was delighted to discover that the museum owner thoughtfully placed it in a vineyard. In a real vineyard with a real cellar door! I din't know if I would have stomach for wine after New Art so I set the priorities accordingly - first, the winery, then everything else.

The place was called Moorilla. A modern building, sleek design and wine bottles with stylish black-and-white labels lined up on the counter. At that time I didn't realise that they would, almost literally, give me a taste of what to expect in the museum. In cellar doors I usually try to buy either good or unusual wines - they had both. I'll tell you about the latter - it was 2011 Muse Cabernet Sauvignon with smoke and capsicum flavours. Capsicum was explained by early harvest (which later appeared to be a distinctive feature of southern Tasmanian vineyards.) I wondered where the smoke came from - if it wasn't a bushfire then they should be careful not to hire smokers to harvest grapes. When I mentioned it to the girl who conducted the tasting, that young rosy-cheeked lady said that the wine's smokiness reminded her of Laphroaig... I looked at her with new interest. My wife once told me that she became a centre of attention and almost gravitational attraction for all nearby males when she sauntered in a shopping centre carrying a bottle of Johnny Walker's Blue Label. Obviously, there is something about proximity of women and whisky, geographically or even in a sentence, that arouses men's interest. 

Having finished with cellar door business we headed to MONA.

Tuesday 7 January 2014

2013 Trip to Tasmania - Day 1 - Lark Distillery

We left the car in the motel and walked to the city. It was a short stroll which took us from Battery Point to Salamanca, past several noisy pubs occupied by Hobart's finest, along the waterfront and, finally, to The Lark Distillery.

The place looked like a bar - the first thing that caught my attention was a collection of whisky bottles beyond the counter. Possibly there are bars with a richer choice of whisky (they say that in Scotland any bar has 20 sorts of whisky just on tap), but I still have to find one. However, there was no point in going all the way from Sydney to Hobart just to taste Glenfiddich, so I asked for local booze which should have been available for tasting as the joint was called a cellar door. Indeed it was available for a small fee that I found reasonable as some bottles reached the price of Johnny Walker's Blue Label. Where is a tasting there is a talk. The guy who lectured us on the subtleties of Tasmanian whisky was knowledgeable and obviously liked his own produce. When he started the tasting blurb by saying "This is what I call a breakfast whisky," I couldn't help exclaiming "I love Hobart!"

Good thing I wasn't driving - I would hate to spit their whiskies out. All of them were good but the cask-strength whisky (58% ABV) aged in port barrels was hands down outstanding. Before that tasting I knew the difference between old and new casks. Now I know the difference between old wine and old port casks - whisky matured in the latter had a brighter and richer taste. It possessed an almost dessert quality - vanilla flavour was followed by a smooth and sweet taste which would be a good match to some kind of Danish pastry.

I guess the price of that whisky was justified but at that time I was not prepared to invest a small fortune into a half-a-litre bottle so I limited myself to a 100 ml hip flask. Now I have to be on my best behaviour for the rest of the year as my next message starts like this:
Dear Santa,
You know that Lark Distillery in Hobart...


Sunday 5 January 2014

Moving from antropov.id.au to Blogger

I am going to start publishing my blog posts here as Blogger provides better integration with Google+ and lower maintenance than a custom Wordpress site. My previous blog antropov.id.au where I started the current series of posts about my trip to Tasmaina will stay dormant for the time being. Let's see if I am going to miss all those widgets and plugins.

2013 Trip to Tasmania - Day 1 - St Ives Apartments

After Mount Wellington we headed to St Ives Apartments. It appeared to be a regular city motel - multi-storey without individual entrances as you see in a regular countryside motel. They offered a reasonably priced continental breakfast which we bought and received straight away on check-in. The breakfast was of a kind which provided just enough energy to see you through till the morning tea.

Our room was quite spacious, but the windows were smallish. I glanced out of the window and noticed teenagers on the roof across the road drinking something, possibly illegal for their age. I looked at them, they looked at me. I kept a decent pause and then withdrew. Apart from the teenagers and distant mountains the major feature of the view was an apartment block where people went about their business oblivious to my attention like inhabitants of a fish tank.


There isn't anything else worth writing about that place. All in all, it was a no-frills, no-nonsense motel whose main advantage was its location: close to Salamanca historical district, the city centre and a bottle shop.