“I’m the Urban Spaceman” was The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’s greatest hit back in 1968 – long before anybody at last night’s Urban Brandy Cocktail Route launch at Jackal & Hide on Kloof Street, Cape Town, was born. Everyone but me, which could explain why I found the cocktails exciting but excruciatingly sweet. The Fish Eagle Rio with its muddle of honey syrup, in particular – a great cocktail for bras, boets and bees.

Must be that I’m Generation X and the others are Z, but then the customer is always right and the Z’s are clearly the target market. Like mixologists Johan Blaauw from the One & Only and Nick Koumbarakis from the Orphanage who jet off to a cruise liner on the Med to compete for Diageo Reserve WORLD CLASS Bartender of the Year 2013 next month.

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Let’s hope they take along a brandy cocktail sweetened with stevia or even better, xylotyl. How about a ZX Dan made with Ladismith brandy and peanut butter? Pure East Rand, like the Radio Rats. There are eight cocktails on the route and four will soon be pensioned off, with four more unveiled, so there is hope for my ZX Dan if Ladismith brandy survives the corporate cull being considered by new owner Edward Snell. I do hope so, but Christelle, dynamic CEO of the Brandy Foundation (below) recommends loading up with Ladismith on any trips to the Klein Karoo.

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Interesting footwear in the air behind Christelle aside, her advice reminds me that Charles Withington (below), Mr. Wine in Darling, reports that the sales of Barrydale brandy contribute 10% of turnover in his Darling Wine Shop. Perhaps time for a Darling Urban Retro Brandy And Nabbas route, aka DURBAN. Of course they already do Durban Poison in Tamboerksloof as a smoke break on the deck of Jackal & Hide is a mixture of Peter Stuyvesant and DP, wafting up from Kloof Street.

chas