The Halliday Tasting Team have just wrapped the 2025 tasting season, a mammoth effort; collectively our esteemed panel have reviewed over 7500 wines. And while we release new tasting notes every week, the annual Halliday Wine Companion Awards, and the release of the latest Companion, provides a major moment in the calendar where we celebrate the very best of Australian wine. In the meantime, the Tasting Team have earned themselves a well-deserved break. But what will they be drinking while on their Halliday holiday? We found out!
Dave Brookes says his current out of office drink is the Penicillin. "I guess it could be considered a 'modern classic', formulated in 2005 by Aussie bartender Sam Ross at legendary NYC cocktail bar Milk & Honey." Dave says the Penicillin is a combination of blended scotch, lemon juice, ginger (muddled or syrup) and honey syrup. "With a scant 7.5ml of an Islay scotch like Laphroaig drizzled or even atomised over the top.
"It starts off peaty and robust but morphs into a complex, perfectly balanced, refreshing drink as the Islay mist suffuses through. It's a beauty and cures all your ills. Make sure you whip up a 'Paper Plane' too... another classic from Sam."
Master of Wine Toni Paterson says her drink of choice is always wine. "An off-duty tipple would be a glass of fine Australian fizz (such as from Deviation Road), a new season Hunter semillon (like the 2023 Thomas Braemore Semillon) or a freshly minted Clare Valley riesling."
Like Toni, Jeni Port says, regardless of work or play, wine does tend to consume her life. "I love it at the end of a day’s tasting, which I know sounds a little weird and strangely worrying to some. But, on the odd occasion when it’s not wine in the glass, it’s probably more than likely a beer or a Guinness."
An avid cyclist, Jeni says after a big day in the outdoors, there's nothing like a cold beer. "After cycling around Lake Burley Griffin in recent years we have started finishing the day at the Capital Brewery in Fyshwick. My favourite frothies are Trail Pale Ale (American style and bitter) or Coast Ale. I’m hooked. I’m also partial to my second favourite ACT brewery, BentSpoke, and its super refreshing, Crankshaft IPA. At the other end of the spectrum, I am always up for a pint of Guinness – can’t help it, it's the Irish in me!"
It's a beauty and cures all your ills. – Dave Brookes
Beer is also the drink of choice for Marcus Ellis. "I’m neither in the expressly crafty zone nor the crisp and borderline-neutral camp. I love Duvel as a definitive terminal punctuation point, but I’m generally in the expansive pale ale camp. Give me gently hoppy florals moored with malty ballast and shaped but not overwhelmed with bitterness, and I am in a happy place."
Chief editor Campbell Mattinson says he's not a natural born beer drinker. "When I started drinking alcohol in my teens I went straight to wine. It wasn't really until my 30s that I started drinking beer; in fact it was writing about wine that turned me on to drinking beer.
"This little journey has affected the beer I now like; I get all the flavour and funk that I could ever desire from wine, and so all I want from beer is cold, cleansing refreshment. I'm not into all this excessively hopped stuff. Light, refreshing, relatively low-flavour beer is what I like drinking, when I'm not drinking wine. I even like some of the low-carb and low-alc beers for this same reason; their emphasis is on refreshment."
For Jane Faulkner, tea is her kryptonite. "I drink tea even when I taste wine." She says she can't live without it. "I source my loose-leaf tea from a couple of dealers, the Australian Tea Masters, based in Geelong, which has an extraordinary range including my morning tea of choice, Kenilworth orange pekoe. Occasionally I buy from Somage Australia when I can afford the grand cru – Red Cloak Grande, a single origin oolong from China, one of the finest teas I’ve ever enjoyed – 50 grams costs about $105. And is worth every cent. I have at least 10 or so teas on the go and choose depending on my mood. A bit like drinking wine actually."
For Philip Rich, it's bourbon. "My off-duty drink used to be premium Japanese whisky until it became as expensive as Burgundy! On my trips to New York to visit my brother, I discovered the world of top-notch bourbon (not JB or JD!) and my go-to at the moment is Noah’s Mill cask strength bourbon – which means it hasn’t been watered down to save money!"
When not in the tasting cycle, Mike Bennie swaps wine for soda water. "My off-duty drinking usually revolves around litres of soda water, a favourite palate cleanser, but for more indulgent drinking I am a huge fan of the various forms of mezcal or agave-based distillates.
"One of the more frequent ones I am drinking now is Black Snake Distillery Pechuga – made with kangaroo meat in the distilling process – it delivers a lot of the herbal, spicy, savoury and earthy elements of great Mexican mezcal while being smooth and clean, but distinct in its gamier savoury qualities. On the rocks, simply drunk, is fantastic."
Shanteh Wale gravitates toward drinks that are delicious and ones she won't over analyse. "Of late that tends to be red ales, I'm loving the Mountain Culture Double Red IPA at the mo (and lagers of course). I love the refreshing quality and moderate sipping nature. If I am taking a breather from alcoholic drinks all together then a good cuppa never goes astray. Slim dash of milk, no sugar. That's me."
