Food & Gin Pairing at Mash Tun

The Mash Tun is all about craft beer and organic wine.  To be honest I’ve never heard of the place but they’ve been doing a lot of advertising on Facebook for their “Gin & Tonic Festival” being held on 30 January.  I’m very new to the G&T scene so when I first noticed the event I thought it would be a good way to get out for the day with friends and do some experimenting.  

As with most things people take their time deciding whether they want to attend an event or not and we missed out on early bird tickets.  And then disaster struck, we missed out on normal priced tickets as well.  Tickets sold out super quick.  After much hunting and emails flying around, Mash Tun let everyone know that they were releasing more tickets in early January.  What a relief!!

While looking at booking for the “Gin & Tonic Festival” we noticed that they were hosting a “Food and Gin Pairing” evening.  This was held on a Friday night and tickets were very reasonable.  They’ve since decided to host another “Food and Gin Pairing” evening since the evening was such a success.

The venue is a little misleading, we had no clue how to get into the building but eventually found our way.  The deco is pretty rustic but looks cool.  There’s an outside area where you can enjoy the warmer weather or where the smokers get relegated to during functions. 

We started the evening off with champagne from Blaauwklippen Vineyards, it was really smooth and light, a very enjoyable drink.  I’m not much of a champagne drinker, but I enjoyed this one.  Russ who owns and runs The Mash Tun explained how things came about and what the evening would entail.

The night was then handed over to Rolf Zeitvogel from Blaauwklippen and Triple Three Gin.  Rolf is very German and through the night we had a giggle over some of his pronunciation.  We could not understand what he was talking about when he said they were bringing around a refreshing drink to cleanse our palates.   We eventually figured out he was saying that it was a cucumber based drink.  For the life of me I thought he was talking about some exotic bean that I’d never heard about :)

After the cucumber drink there was starters of cucumber with salmon and 100% Juniper Berries Gin.  We were surprised by the quantity of the drink, when you think of a tasting you think of maybe a shot of gin but it was a ball shaped glass full of gin and mix.  I can’t remember what the gin was mixed with but it was delicious J  The second course was a battered springbok ball with tomato and basil and African Botanicals Gin.  This drink was pretty strong, well stronger than the first one anyway.  We later found out that they started off light and each time increased the strength of the drinks.  The third course was raspberry filled macaroons with Citrus Infusion Gin.  This was also pretty nice.  It’s amazing how each drink was infused with various flavours and how different they each tasted.

My only complaints would be that the food was definitely too little, and by the end the drinks were very strong.  I was driving that evening so had to watch how much I had to drink.  But all in all was a pretty cool evening out with my friends and am super excited for the “Gin & Tonic Festival” coming up at the end of the month.

Lavender Blue

I’m originally from the Eastern Cape so I when I’m not spending holidays overseas I’ll be home with my family. 

One of the things we enjoy doing when I go home is having breakfast at Lavender Blue.  There wasn’t another “restaurant” like it.  However, now there’s Pine Creek down the road from Lavender Blue. I haven't tried it yet, so can't comment on what it's like.  If you're going for breakfast make sure you're there nice and early before the crowds arrive. 

Lavender Blue is self service, in that you order your food with the cashier and then collect your food from the different stations when it’s ready.  There’s an espresso bar where you can collect normal drip coffee or wait for cappuccinos etc,  or a juice bar where there’s fresh juices or there’s a fridge with fizzy drinks and other drinks.

You then stand in line for your food which is made in front of you.  It’s amazing to watch especially if you have the omelet, which I normally do, they make it look so easy but I never get mine right.

Cooking is like dancing

Mushroom and Cheese Omelet

However, it is time consuming, so don’t think it’s somewhere you can have a quick meal.  You need at least an hour and add more time onto that if you want to do some shopping.  They have fresh fruit and veg, other organic goodies like sauces, salad dressings etc, and flowers on sale in one section downstairs.

Upstairs is for the ladies – clothing and jewellery.  They have really cool clothes and I’ve landed up buying something every time I’ve been there. 

Christmas Markets

I previously posted about the upcoming Christmas Markets, and I have to say that this year the markets have been really good.

So I started the festive season off with a visit to the Constantia Gift Fair, you can find my review here.

The second market I attended was the Simply South Gift Market in Bergvliet.  I went to this market last year so I knew that it was going to be good.  It was better than last year, however I didn’t buy as many gifts.  I landed up buying myself a few things instead.  I love plants and bought this cute succulent below.

The next market I went to is the Kommetjie Christmas Market.  It’s a bit of a drive but totally worth it.  I could have spent a fortune at this market.  I need to give a shout out to Long Beach Brewery who was the only stall selling alcohol.  If you haven’t tried their craft beer yet, I would definitely recommend that you try it.  I enjoyed the IPA and the porter beer.  They say as a woman you should start off with the blonde ale, but definitely try all of them out.

If you haven’t heard of 37 Sandals yet, they’re definitely something to look out for.  You can buy a tan or black base and buy a variety of straps.  After wearing mine for a few weeks and taking them on holiday I definitely think I need to go shopping for a few extra pairs of straps.  The straps are easy to change out and you can mix and match.  With their wide variety of colours you can definitely find a different colour for every outfit.

The last market I attended was the Pinelands Craft Market.  I’ve never been to this market before and could kick myself for not trying it before.  It’s held at the Pinelands High School.  The market is a fair size and filled with a lot of different things but there are also similar stalls to the Kommetjie market.  There were a lot of crafty goods, lots of plants and of course food products.

All in all I bought most of my Christmas presents at the markets and had a ball visiting the different markets.

Polkadraai Strawberry Farm

A few months ago I wrote a post about fruit picking around the Western Cape.  After a few failed attempts to organise a day out we finally went strawberry picking at Polkadraai Strawberry Farm.  It was quite a long day in that we first did a trail run on Delvera Wine Estate and then headed over to Polkadraai.

My suggestion is to get there early, we arrived at about 10:30 and it was boiling out.  We were also a little concerned as it looked so busy, there were people and cars everywhere, including a luxury bus. We decided to grab a bite to eat and then head out into the strawberry fields.  The main theme seems to be healthy living with freshly squeezed juices and smoothies.  There is also a “farm stall” where you can buy a variety of goods including strawberry plants.

There’s a choice of a junior picker, harvester, the professional and the ultimate picker.  I think you should take into account how many strawberries you can eat and if you’re sharing the bucket, then make a decision on what size you’re going to go for.  We decided to get the harvester, which is the red bucket.  For the kiddies they can either get the junior picker or harvester including activities.  The activities are pony rides, “tractor” rides around the farm and face painting.

They don’t allow you to share a bucket, you need to buy your own or you won’t be allowed into the fields.  There’s a lady that explains where to start picking and what you should be looking for.  They say the redder the strawberries the sweeter they are.  The downside to this is that the redder they are the riper they are and therefore the quicker they go off.  I picked a combination of ruby red ones and red ones, this way I can eat the ruby red ones and have the red ones for later. 

One of their rules is that you should never eat the strawberries straight from the fields, they should always be washed first, but this is relevant to all fruit where you eat the skin.  I was amazed to hear and see a family of four eating the strawberries while we were in the fields.  They either didn’t read the rules or simply don’t care.  They also suggest that when you get home not to wash the strawberries straight away but to rather wash as you eat.  This way they last longer.  We learnt some interesting facts about these juicy fruit J

When you look at the size of the harvester bucket it seems like it will take forever to fill, but surprisingly I got half way through a row and my bucket was almost full.  They say it should take between 30 and 40 minutes to fill a bucket, not very long when you think about it.

This farm definitely caters for children, with swings, a play gym and pony rides.  There’s a big grassy patch for people to picnic or relax on. 

Considering how far out the farm is, it’s near Stellenbosch, and if you’re not planning on spending the whole day there I would suggest making a day of it and planning something else in the area.  We were lucky in that we had the run in the morning. 

All in all it’s a great day out in the summer sun.  Next summer I think it’s going to be time to try our luck at cherry picking.