The Taste Australia Hamper, Maker by Maker

The Taste Australia Gourmet Hamper is named for its makers, and they sit a long way apart. A South Australian cabernet, two beers brewed in Victoria, honey popcorn and olives from Kangaroo Island, macadamias roasted on the Queensland Sunshine Coast. Read as a map rather than a shopping list, the box takes in three states, only one of them the state it is packed in.

That is the difference between an Australian hamper and a box that only says Australia on the outside. Here is every maker in it, where they work, and what each one is doing there.

South Australia, and the island off it

The wine sets the tone. It is a St Hugo Cabernet Sauvignon, from the Barossa Valley house St Hugo, South Australia. Cabernet sauvignon is the dark, firm end of the red spectrum, which is why this is a bottle for a table with food on it rather than a glass on its own.

Two more items come from Kangaroo Island, off the South Australian coast. The island is a bee sanctuary, its Ligurian population kept isolated there for well over a century, which is the reason Kangaroo Island honey gets talked about at all. The honey popcorn is made by Kangaroo Island Produce Company and the Mediterranean olives by Kangaroo Island Olives, a mixed pick, so the jar holds several varieties rather than one note repeated.

Queensland, in the shell

Nutworks roast salt nut-in-shell macadamias are Australian grown, then roasted and packed on site at the Nutworks factory on the Queensland Sunshine Coast, and the 200g pack in this hamper is the one that still has the shell on. The macadamia is native to that stretch of the country, which makes it the most genuinely Australian thing in the box. It is also the only item that arrives with a tool: a small key in the pack, because that shell gives way to almost nothing in a normal kitchen drawer. Our guide to cracking a macadamia covers the hammer method for when the key goes missing.

Victoria, the shortest trip in the box

The two craft beers come from Bells Beach Brewing in Victoria, the Endless Summer and the Hells Bells XPA. They are brewed in the state the box is packed in, which reads as a small thing until you notice how far every other pin on this map has travelled to reach the same bench. Neither beer is sold here on its own, so the hamper is the answer when someone asks where they came from. It holds wine and beer, so it is a gift for an adult household. Enjoy responsibly.

The five that travel under a brand, not a town

Five items carry a maker but no map pin. The olive oil and sea salt artisan pita box from Valley Produce Company is Australian made and oven baked, and it is the sturdy one, thick enough to drag through a dip. VPC also send the fig and almond fruit pyramid, caramelised black mission figs pressed with roasted almonds, which belongs on the cheese board with a knife rather than in a bowl, and the macadamia shortbread, all natural and all Australian ingredients, the biscuit most likely to survive a warm December afternoon. The milk chocolate roasted almonds are The Cocoa Emporium ones, the coffee table item, and the one to keep somewhere cool. The fifth is Chocolatier Bundaberg Rum Liqueur Truffles, 110g of them, and the Bundaberg in that name is the flavour of the liqueur filling, not a place the chocolate comes from.

Every maker in the box

Why the map is worth knowing

Provenance is not a label on a box, it is what the person giving the gift can say out loud when the lid comes off. A Barossa cabernet and two Victorian beers in the same hand. Honey from an island with its own bees. A macadamia you have to work for. Those are sentences, and a gift that comes with sentences lands differently from one that comes with a ribbon and nothing else. It is the same test we applied in our notes on the Australian food an expat actually misses: who made it, where, and would you name them out loud.

One honest caveat about the map. Very occasionally a line runs out, and we substitute something of equal or higher value from the same category, so the box holds to the maker in nearly every case and to the category in all of them.

Everything is packed by hand in Corio, on the northern edge of Geelong, into the French blue hamper box with its gold ribbon, and that box travels inside an insulated shipper carton. A personalised gift card is written out and included at no extra cost, which is the part most people read twice.

Questions about the Taste Australia Hamper

Where does the food in the Taste Australia Gourmet Hamper come from?

The wine is South Australian, from the Barossa Valley house St Hugo. The two beers are from Bells Beach Brewing in Victoria. The honey popcorn and the olives are from Kangaroo Island, and the macadamias are Australian grown and roasted on the Queensland Sunshine Coast. The pita and the shortbread are both Valley Produce Company, Australian made. The chocolate almonds carry a maker, The Cocoa Emporium, rather than a town, and so do the Chocolatier truffles.

What wine is in the Taste Australia Gourmet Hamper?

A St Hugo Cabernet Sauvignon, from the Barossa Valley house St Hugo in South Australia. Cabernet sauvignon is the dark, firm end of the red spectrum, so it suits a table with red meat on it rather than a glass on its own before dinner.

Can I buy the individual products separately?

Most of them, yes. The Kangaroo Island honey popcorn, the Mediterranean olives, the olive oil and sea salt pita box, the fig and almond fruit pyramid, the milk chocolate roasted almonds and the nut-in-shell macadamias all sit on the site on their own. So does the macadamia shortbread, and so do the Chocolatier truffles, though neither of those two is always in stock. The wine and the two beers are hamper-only, which is usually what decides people between building a box and buying one.

What does the Taste Australia Gourmet Hamper cost?

It is $199.95, which puts it among the larger hampers we send. Hamper pricing moves with the range, so the figure on the Taste Australia Gourmet Hamper page is the one to trust.

The Taste Australia Gourmet Hamper sits in our red wine hampers, alongside the wider Christmas hampers range, and it ships free anywhere in Australia on orders over $100. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post.