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Wildflower Waratah,
NSW, $30
A tangy, refreshing,
cloudy golden ale brewed
using all-NSW ingredients:
locally grown barley and
hops fermented with
wild yeasts cultured
from native flowers.
Very limited.
wildflowerbeer.com

Okar Australian Amaro,

Adelaide Hills, SA, $39

Gorgeous deep magenta

colour, punchy scents of

sweet riberries, blood lime,

native currant, strawberry

gum, brilliantly balanced

bitterness. Add local gin

and vermouth for an

all-Australian Negroni.

applewooddistillery.com.au

2017 Brave New Wine

Dreamland, Great

Southern, WA, $36

Those crazy cats at BNW

have excelled themselves

with this barrel-fermented

riesling infused with native

myrtle, pepperberries and

wild lime. Super-fragrant

and vermouth-like.

bravenewwine.com.au

Daylesford & Hepburn

Native Tonic, Vic, $6

You need locally made

mixers to go with your

locally made spirits. Add

this tonic – flavoured with

quandong, finger lime and

lemon myrtle – to gin for

a drink that tastes like a

G&T-Gimlet hybrid.

localmineralwater.com

Black Gate Quandong

Kernel Eau de Vie,

Mendooran, NSW, $110

Created for the Noma

pop-up in Sydney, this

subtly flavoured, gently

sweet, almond-scented

liqueur harks back to the

quandong pies of the

distiller’s childhood.

blackgatedistillery.com

Tasmanian brewer

Ashley Huntington

of Two Metre Tall

collaborates with native

herb grower, Paulette

Whitney, to produce

an ale called Farmhouse

Ambigua for Billy Kwong;

and Attica sommelier Jane

Lopes has made a lillipilly

wine (fortified with gin)

using fruit foraged from

neighbourhood trees.

(Shewry, meanwhile, has made a soy-sauce

substitute by fermenting wattleseeds.)

The whole field is being taken far more

seriously now. A team of researchers led by

Professor Vladimir Jiranek of the University of

Adelaide is looking into the microbiology of native

ferments such as way-a-linah and mangaitch, and

has travelled to the central highlands of Tasmania

and the islands of the Torres Strait to take samples

of sap and nectar for analysis.

Indigenous chef Clayton Donovan, of the

ABC cooking showWild Kitchen, produces ciders

flavoured with native ingredients – finger lime

and apple, quandong and pear – under the Byron

Bay Wild Cider label, and is encouraged by all

these developments.

“I think it’s great for Australia that there’s so

much interest in native ingredients now,” says

Donovan. “Our identity is these flavours that

we have in the bush.”●

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“It’s great

for Australia

that there’s so

much interest

in native

ingredients.

Our identity is

these flavours

that we have

in the bush.”

GOURMET TRAVELLER 49

Drinks