8 minute read
DISTILLED BY DESIGN
Catching up with Mikey Ball, mixer & cocktails entrepreneur
By Gilbert Peterson
Right at the beginning Mikey Ball’s part time work in hospitality veered away from the architecture degree in Auckland he was studying for. He enjoyed the hospitality more, so he switched over.
During the early days snowboarding in Canada and Queenstown, Mikey broadened his bar tending experience, but it was in Dubai he felt the need to push on with developing his knowledge of hospitality, including the finer points of making cocktails: “I needed to put some love into where my career was taking me,” he says.
Before long he was in London at a job interview with top bar Milk & Honey. “They had one of the hardest job exams. If you didn’t get 80% you pretty much didn’t get the job,” Mikey said. “My own reading up on hospitality had focussed on 3 or 4 key textbooks, and it turned out their exam did too.”
Ballin Drinks Workshop Photo: Juleon Green
But Mikey was restless for more creativity, and he migrated to Dandelyan where he quickly rose to become Head Bartender. “They encouraged the understanding of plant life in drinks - modern botany,” says Mikey, “and, amongst other things, how using locally sourced, botanical ingredients can add a local twist to traditional cocktails.
“They wanted us to build intrigue and excitement, to convert the cocktail into an experience for our clients, something delicious, while following the premise of classic cocktail pillars.”
Mikey pursued his calling to the nth: Under his watch as Head Bartender, Dandelyan won numerous awards including ‘World’s Best Bar’ and ‘Best International Hotel Bar’ at the Tales and Spirits awards in New Orleans in 2017.
Now, after more than 10 years away, Mikey is back, passing on what he has learned about top
quality hospitality practice, and building his own pre-bottled range of cocktails and solutions.
Mikey uses techniques considered unconventional for a bar, (though not so much for a kitchen), techniques like vacuum distillation whereby botanicals are exposed to very cold temperatures, or with ultrasonic treatment where ingredients show the best yeild of flavour via their natural oils. He’s been toying with microwaves too, in the quest for distinctive, exclamatory flavour.
“But first we have to understand taste,” he says, “for example of the leaves of our beautiful citrus and other ingredients, then we have to understand how to treat them.”
Business these days is steadily busier. Along with his own range of cocktails and solutions (Ballins Drinks) he’s deeply involved with East Imperial Premium Tonic & Soda’s and Scapegrace Distillery Co.
Plus, consulting: new bar set ups… teaching bartending staff how their clients can always enjoy a unique experience while, at the same time, the bar is efficient as it can be. His clientele are many leading venues including Bar Teresa in Hawkes Bay, the Hawthorne Lounge in Wellington, Gin-gin and Last Word in Christchurch, and in Auckland Dead Shot, Caretaker, Broken Lantern, the Sunset Bar, Rooftop at QT, Lylo, Mumbaiwala. Palmer Bar… and more.
www.ballindrinks.com Insta: @Mikeyball88 @Ballindrinksandcreative www.facebook.com/michael.ball.12764 www.facebook.com/ballindrinks
Mikey sent us a couple of cocktails, both tying in vermouth as a modifier:
Uncommon Ume
Hanami Bloom - floral, tropical and fragrant
50ml Scapegrace Uncommon Ume Vodka
10ml Mancino Sakura Vermouth or Americano Vermouth
Glass: Coupette Ice: N/A Garnish: Pawpaw/Papaya Ball
And similar but with a Yellow/Orange PawPaw ball inside the Martini, no need for the serve on the side
☛ www.eastimperial.nz/blogs/cocktails/ left-hand-kola
A Tale of Two Whiskies
THOMSON WHISKY & THE NZ WHISKY COLLECTION
By Gilbert Peterson
What does it take to make great whisky in New Zealand? Heritage, experience and learned skill will have the most say. It turns out two of our founding distillers share something of a common whakapapa in that both began, phoenix-like, after acquiring barrels of whisky auctioned off after the famous Dunedin whisky pioneer, Wilsons, was closed down in 1997.
Though each is blazing their own trail, both share the ambition to make whisky that is distinctively from New Zealand, with character and attributes recognized as such internationally. And whisky connoisseurs the world over are already reporting both are indeed well along the track to achieving just that.
I asked Head Distillers Mathew Thomson and Michael Byars what brought them to where they are now? They were fervent about the main thing: To make a great whisky you must love whisky!
“If you love it and are really interested in it you make better decisions,” Mathew says.
Michael said patience is also essential. “You can’t rush the distilling process when creating quality spirits.” He cites other key personal attributes as “a good sense of smell, a developed palate, and creativity.”
Mathew Thomson
Head Distiller & Co-founder, Thomson Whisky
“In the early days, convincing people that good whisky could come out of New Zealand was a challenge because the category was in its infancy and there wasn’t a lot of respect for New Zealand whisky at the time.
We had to basically change the minds of mature whisky drinkers and get them to try what we were making, to broaden their thinking that premium New Zealand single malt whisky could exist and was worth supporting.
Indeed, feedback from our drinkers is always the most rewarding part of what we do.
People make the effort to email us, or message us from around the world with their own personal tasting notes, or with a special story about giving our whisky as a gift, and it’s amazing. I’m always surprised at how motivated people are to sit down and write to us. When that happens you know the global whisky community is in a great place. There’s a feeling of connection.
I don’t think you could be a distiller unless you’re a ‘maker’ type of person – someone who works with their hands and gets fully immersed in the process
and the materials. My background was in the film and television industry where I think being able to problem-solve is key.
A specific skill needed for distilling is understanding the raw materials and how they respond to the distillation processes.
We use native Manuka wood to smoke the malted barley before we mash and distil it. The smoke notes are reminiscent of a bonfire on the beach, or a BBQ, and they’re a flavor really familiar to New Zealanders.
We also use peat from the South Island for the same purpose, which gives a smokey flavor.
We really felt the support of Kiwis during the lock downs; they came out and bought our whisky and gin. The silver lining of the lock downs is that we’re now distributing overseas. It forced our hand. We had our best Christmas on record last year.”
Where to from here?
“Whisky is a particular kind of business because you have to build up years of aged stock. But we’ve now built up enough single malt whisky to sell into other regions of the world and that’s definitely a focus.”
After many years making their own whisky in the kitchen sink as it were, Thomson made a start commercially by bottling Willowbank whisky purchased ex Wilsons. They then launched their own fully fledged craft distillery in 2014. Today, many international awards recognise especially the global first they have achieved with their own unique style: Manuka smoke single malt whisky. Thomson now operate a full service distillery onsite at Riverhead in Auckland with two copper whisky stills and two gin stills. www.thomsonwhisky.com
Michael Byars
Head Distiller & General Manager, The New Zealand Whisky Collection
“Before long there will be a new brand and style under the New Zealand Whisky Co banner which will be released once we feel it is ready. A New Zealand whisky, not a Scotch, a New Zealand whisky. Watch this space!
But for today our brands have become iconic all over the world so we will continue to produce these.
We have been very privileged to be able to sell the famous Wilsons Whisky under our own brand. Going forward we are utilising the knowledge and experience gained from the strong connection with Wilson’s Distillery on which to build our own story and create our own products while respecting the heritage.
This is a dream that CEO Greg Ramsay has had since purchasing the last 75,000 litres of cask strength whisky from the Preston family in 2010. It was aging there in a seaside Oamaru warehouse.
For our whisky, although all ingredients must be 100% from New Zealand, barrels can also play a big part, depending on what the desired style is. To honour and reproduce these styles, I continue to source ex-red wine barrels from quality New Zealand wine producers to finish the whiskies off.
Of course, the oak may be grown outside of New Zealand, with ex Bourbon coopered in the USA, and red wine barrels coopered in Europe.
In our ‘Aged Core Range’ the NZ Whisky Co has become well known for its red wine finish brands, for example the Dunedin DoubleCask (previously DoubleWood) and the three Oamaruvian's: Revolution, 100 Proof and Cask Strength. “
Michael draws on an extensive and international background in wine making and distilling. After meeting his future wife in Otago, he followed her back to Finland - Laura now heads up the company’s Sales & Marketing. There in Helsinki he completed a degree in hospitality which introduced him to wine making, a passion he pursued over successive seasons in German vineyards. The two returned to New Zealand to study wine making at Lincoln University. Michael subsequently became head wine maker at Crater Rim before the family was again lured back to Europe in 2013.
A spate of serendipitous events in 2017 led to a spell as Stillman then Head Distiller for the Helsinki Distilling Co, but on a return visit to New Zealand in 2020, the Covid lockdown struck. Never at a loss Michael was invited to manage The New Zealand Whisky Collection and their distillery in Dunedin. www.thenzwhisky.com
