Camping Drinks

Beer Fortified Sauvignon Blanc Wine

Ahh ‘tis the New Year and I’m busy marking off all the long weekends with camping and fishing. And with that in mind I thought I’d share my top Four FOR Camping.

These are just something a little different from taking the usual Bundy or Bourbon or UDL. Things that just help to make more room; are lighter or just make things go easier while the kids are fighting, the boat won’t start and the sand flies are doing the gypsy tap on your leg.

Brass Beer:         Brass Beer has only been available for a short while in Australia. What sets it apart from the rest of the beers available is the fact that it’s in 330ml recyclable PET plastic bottles. It takes a little getting used to with the plastic bottles; they are soft in the hand unlike the Carlton Cold plastic bottles that were out about 15 years or so ago.

I’d probably grab the Pilsner over the Lager. The latter being a little flat and flavourless on the tongue. Still clean and crisp though but just missing the mark in the taste area. The Pilsner however is quite good, and makes a great “after mowing the yard pool beer”, no worries about broken glass. A good crisp Czech Style pilsner, that works equally as well by itself or with food.

A carton of this stuff weighs about 8kgs as opposed to about 14kgs for a normal carton. I guess this means it’s simply easier to carry twice as much……

James Squire Golden Ale Tins – I’ve written before about how good the James Squire beers are, so I won’t bang on about it again. The reason these get on the list though is because of the neat little 330ml tin, which are about three quarters the size of a normal tin. This means that you can stack them three high and three across in a 40litre Engel, giving you nine tins. With a little bit of my type of “alcohol management”, you can easily move them through and still have enough coldies for the night. Be careful though even at 330ml they still have 1.4 standard drinks in them so they can catch you out. Plus as the Minister for War and Finance said “the little tins just look so cute”.

Shaw and Smith Sauvignon Blanc – The reason I like it the camping gear is because the Minister for War and Finance likes it in the camping gear….that and the fact that this stuff would make a pretty good argument as Australia’s best Savvy. It works well with food, especially fresh caught and cooked fish, with intense fruit flavour, good acid, flavours of lemons, passionfruit and nectarine. It’s a pretty impressive wine, fresh and intense on the palate with a zesty, flinty acidity on the finish. Takes up less room than a carton of UDL’s and still gives the girls (and guys) something different to drink.

Kellermeister Sable – It’s probably a little too warm still to talk about drinking tawnys, tokays and ports, but this drop can only be found by ordering off the winery directly, and if you do it now it will be here by the time you want to go camping at Easter. Kellermiester Sable is a ruby Port into which is steeped dark chocolate, clove, cinnamon and brandy. The result is something else! To the best of my knowledge it’s the only liqueur port in Australia that the chocolate remains as a liquid and doesn’t drop out into the bottom of the bottle. The only let down is the extremely daggy label, a throwback to the 70’s, almost looks like it should have been in “Boogie Nights’, Google it and see for yourself, while you’re at the computer order yourself a dozen. You’ll thank yourself for it later.

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