Introducing ... Regan Drew your local Tassie Gourmand!

G’day There,

My name is Regan Drew and if you're lucky enough to be part of the upcoming Tassie Gourmand tour, we'll get to know each other well, but if not, here's a little bit about me and Tassie.

I worked in bars, bottleshops, nightclubs and pubs for around 13 years in Tasmania from the mid 1990s. Then I landed a real day job in Sydney, but I could never shake the association with quality wine. I undertook Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET) Level 3 Award studies and passed with Distinction, have been an Associate Judge for the Citi New South Wine Awards in 2013, been a Steward/Assoc Judge for the Royal Sydney Wine Show. The academic side is fine, but I love the agricultural aspect and had a couple of stints helping out in the Hunter Valley during vintage with Andrew Thomas of Thomas Wines. After being exposed to all this good wine, I've contributed writing wine review content for Cracka Wines and Sunshine Coast based wine hub The Grapehunter. After starting my own blog, vinonotebook.com, I was invited to be the "Weekend Magazine" wine columnist for the APN ARM stable of newspapers, with a readership of over 500,000.

Lakiesha Mundy

December 20, 2015

Family, Food, Foodie, Home Cooked, Indulgent, Insight, NSW, Silly Season, Sydney, Traditions

Traditions... why keep them going?

Lakiesha Mundy

December 20, 2015

Family, Food, Foodie, Home Cooked, Indulgent, Insight, NSW, Silly Season, Sydney, Traditions

Family traditions are something rife in my family... well thanks to ME! haha I believe there is much more to them than, putting up a real tree we've bought and CARRIED HOME, naming it a one syllable B name, having a non-functional train sitting beneath it.... it's the memories, the time together and the symbolism of 'that time of year'.

My brothers and sisters (all 4 of them..!) roll their eyes, laugh at me and pretend to hate them. Secretly, they love them as much as me!

So, what is a tradition?

Made in Mudgee

Words by Gregor Stronach I received an invitation a couple of weeks ago, by email – and it took me all of about 20 seconds of frantically stabbing at my keyboard to type “Yes please, of course, I would love to be there, it sounds amazing!” to lock in my seat at the Crow Bar for the Made in Mudgee event on August 25.

Whisky & Cheese @ The Hive Bar, Erskineville

I’ve long been a fan of cheese pairings – but I’ll readily admit that they’ve all been pairings done with a range of wines, from the ‘top shelf’ end of the decadent scale to some seriously mediocre offerings lined up alongside a bowl of well-beyond room temperature cheddar cubes.

But even longer than I’ve been a fan of a cheese-pairing evening, I’ve been a devotee of whisky – specifically, Scotch whisky (with the occasional smattering of Irish, Bourbon, Canadian, Rye, Japanese… and especially Australian whisky thrown in for good measure…)

A night of indulgence... with life's guilty pleasures...

Wine was breathing, cheese bubbling on the stove and you could faintly see your breath in the air when you spoke... yes, Winter was here and so was the Fondue Feast! As the last candle was lit, the first guests started to filter in up the stairs...