Hi-Fi Rye July is a listening session with paired whiskey cocktails happening at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute.
The seventh month of the year means one thing for the team at The Gospel Whiskey: it’s Rye July.
As part of a month-long celebration of their favourite grain, Melbourne’s leading whiskey distillery has partnered with Brunswick’s Next Wave for the two-part music and whiskey series, Hi-Fi Rye July.
Hi-Fi Rye July
- Sunday 26 July
- Next Wave – Brunswick Mechanics Institute
- Tickets here
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The second event, on Sunday 26 July at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute, will feature live music from Ryan Berkeley, DJ sets from Eric Spanner x Acid Chess Club and DJ Possum & Myles Mac, plus a full album listening session for Horatio Luna. The Gospel has developed a range of rye cocktails to match the changing sounds.
Hi-Fi Rye July is part of The Gospel’s ongoing adherence to three Cs: culture, creativity and community.
“When I started The Gospel I said, I want the brand to be something else other than just whiskey. I wanted to reflect an attitude to life,” says The Gospel co-founder Andrew Fitzgerald. “We won’t do an event or anything unless it hits on one of those three Cs.”
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As the brand name suggests, everything The Gospel does is driven by fanatic passion. Fitzgerald says he has always been a fanatic. His first love was hip hop.
“Anyone that’s been involved in hip hop ends up being somewhat of a hoarder of certain elements of hip hop,” he says. “You know, having a trainer collection and later having a record collection and then later getting into vintage hi-fi stuff.”
Fitzgerald hasn’t lost his love for hip hop – something evidenced by The Gospel’s Chess Boxin’ event featuring the Wu-Tang Clan’s GZA a few years ago – but these days, he practically lives and breathes whiskey.
“To make whiskey, it can essentially be the same all the way through: grain, water, yeast, ferment, distil,” Fitzgerald says. “However, the fanaticism comes when you absolutely obsess over each of those.”
It should come as no surprise to hear that Fitzgerald is obsessed with rye. “The reason why I’m obsessed with rye is you get a real connection or a flavour profile depending on where it’s grown,” he says. “So we’ve made the exact same whiskey, the exact same variety grown in two different regions, and seen a completely different flavour profile from those two different regions.”
Fitzgerald and his colleagues have been delving into the science around these variations in flavour. “I’m definitely wasting more money and effort on it than I should be,” he says, “but you’ve got to do the fun stuff.”
He adds, “The fanatical element about doing it is you have to do it when it seems like we shouldn’t be. You’re sort of rolling into the distance with blind faith. And if nothing else, fanaticism is blind faith.”
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One of Fitzgerald’s broader goals for The Gospel brand is to encourage his fellow fanatics, whatever their particular area of interest might be.
“What I really love is meeting anyone that’s absolutely fanatical about something. I don’t even have to care about the topic, but I start to care about it through their love for it. I find that infectious,” he says.
“I never skated, but somebody talks to me about their skateboard collection, I’m all in – I’m starting to look to collect my own skateboards after that conversation.”
In that sense, The Gospel is not just a whiskey distillery, but a meeting point for fanatics of all stripes. “We like the idea of celebrating that fanaticism,” Fitzgerald says.
“Whether it’s chess playing or whether it’s gaming, if you have a real passion for it, you share that passion, and the world’s richer for it.”
This thinking underpins the Hi-Fi Rye July series. Not only is it a great opportunity to listen to some killer tunes and showcase The Gospel’s products, but it’s also a way of uniting a bunch of obsessives.
“We obviously have drinks and people can enjoy what we’re about there,” Fitzgerald says. “But, you know, it also brings a whole community of people together.”
Learn more about The Gospel Whiskey here.
This article was made in partnership with The Gospel Whiskey.
