December/January #19
Happy holidays, dear readers, and what a ride 2024 was. We’ve brought you this month’s issue a little late, but full of cheer, and with a lot of festive good wishes, whatever that means for you.
Christmas markets, a cinematic stage version of Fleabag, the Franklin Road lights. And our 2024 Scuttlebutt: where is Nicholas Down now? Did the Cherry Blossom people sell their property? Is a shipping container art? Some of you love scuttlebutt; some of you can take it or leave it. Sometimes we use it as a vehicle to talk about serious things around town. As this year wore on, we found ourselves doing that more and more. Well folks, there’s a local election next year folks, so before we dive in, let’s reflect on the Hamilton stories that make us us. And yes, we’ve linked to it separately so you don’t have to scroll past it to get to Adam’s gig guide.
And because we’re a town that shuts down and clears out in the summer months, we’re combining our December and January issues so we can focus on tending the barbecue, getting stuck behind camper vans over the Kaimais, dodging conversations with a crazy cousin at family Christmas events, and chasing a toddler around on the lawn.
It’s been a big year for this plucky little newsletter, and we’re going to spend some of our time off reflecting on the year past and future plans and aspirations. To help with this we are running our first ever readers survey, because we’d like to get to know you better, and we’d like to hear how we’re doing. So if you’ve got a spare moment, we’d love for you to fill it out for us. All respondents will go in the draw to win a $100 voucher at Amphora.
Wishing you all the very best as 2024 draws to a close, and we’ll see you in February. In the meantime, drop your hot tips and recommendations via hello@thewaikatodraft.com or slide into our Insty DMs.
Feature: A Year in Scuttlebutt
We look back at our favourite items from the Scuttlebutt section in what turned out to be an eventful year.
Feature: The cambridge distillery co.
We all had lockdown projects that kept us sane, but not everyone has been able to make the transition into an award-winning boutique business. But Olympic-gold-medal winning coach James Coote presumably has discipline in droves. We knocked on his distillery door to learn more about his craft.
What’s on
IRL, including Markets
It’s that time of year. This weekend, December 7th, is the Extravaganza in the Park, Elliott Park, in Hyde Ave. What was originally a one-of 10 years ago has turned into an annual Christmas staple. This year they have a banger planned with hāngi (which always sells out early), Chloe the unicorn will be taking rides; there’s bouncy castles and mini-cars, and more than 140 stalls from which to shop local for Christmas.
There’s the Tamahere twilight market, where you can buy your dermatologist's life partner’s dog walker’s handmade soap.
The Riverbank Lane Market is also today.
Gourmet in the Gardens continues.
We have quite a few readers who work at Waikato Hospital: Celeste, the Rudis foodtruck, is at the bottom car bar December 3 - 20 (a little birdie told us they had to take a few things off the menu to comply with the “heathy eating” policy of WPH, but the almond croisants are still here, so who knows.)
The museum reopens! Their summer programme includes the Astronomy Photographer of the Year:
The Black Caps play England in the third test match on December 14-18. They’ll also be doing a signing session December 13, 3.30pm at Centreplace.
Not until February (Feb 21 to March 2 to be exact), but we got our first look at the Hamilton Arts Festival this year. It includes Nathan Haines and friends, a queer punk pirate take on Shakespeare, and lots of musical offerings in the various nooks and crannies of the Hamilton Gardens. Keep an eye out for our February issue for more coverage closer to the time.
And don’t forget the Franklin Lights Christmas lights.
Did you know that Hamilton still had a high school doing night school classes? Fraser high runs a large number of short (6-8 weeks) courses in a wide variety of subjects, whether you want to learn how to do small business accounting or learn to weld there will be a course for you. The cooking courses are a special treat, taught by a selection of cooks keen to share the joy of their home nations cuisine. While other courses teach languages, photography, crafts or even bee keeping. Enrolments for term one 2025 are now open, and fill up by Christmas. Contributed by Shawn Walsh.
Music
By Adam Fulton
December 6th Pocket Money | The Yard, Raglan | Tickets
For those that missed Pocket Money last month in Kirikiriroa (looking at almost everyone here, including myself) the band were described as "great" by one attendee, and you have another chance to experience greatness, with added travel time!
December 13th & 14th Hamtown Smakdown | Wintec Hub | Tickets
The annual meeting of some of the oldest, and youngest in New Zealand hardcore returns to Wintec, proving that they can in fact make money from the arts. Many great bands (21, to be exact) across two nights, including but not limited to my personal favourites: Carthage from Tāmaki Makaurau. Local weirdo, sludgy metalcore act Salvage and Brainwave from Poneke.
Schizophonics (USA) | Harbour View Hotel, Raglan | Tickets
Frequent visitors to these shores, San Diego 'husband-and-wife rock duo' will be performing as a trio at Raglan's old Harbour View Hotel. For fans of rock and roll, or the tension that can only arise from the unique interpersonal dynamic of touring as a married couple and a bassist.
Movies
By Jason Marshall
The silly season is nearly upon us, and what better way to escape relatives (or just the summer heat) than by stepping into a movie theatre for a couple of hours?
Te Awamutu stalwart the Regent Theatre is running special screenings of beloved holiday classics like Elf, Gremlins, The Holiday (Congrats millennials, you’re old enough to have an entry in the Christmas movie canon now), a Home Alone double feature, and of course, everyone’s favourite seasonal movie, Die Hard*. They also host a slew of special secret santa screenings on Christmas Eve, including a sing-a-long session with the Te Awamutu Brass Band.
*(There’s fierce debate online about whether this is a Christmas movie or not but if you can think of a movie that better encapsulates the spirit of the season than one where someone endures a spouse’s office work do, even though her colleagues are terrible, and goes to some length to help them out, I’d love to hear about)
It’s easy to forget that before Fleabag conquered the streaming world and the zeitgeist circa 2016 (Weren’t a lot of us a certain kind of aesthetically neurotic back then? And, here’s my theory, there just isn’t a lot of appetite for it after everybody went insane in very non-aesthetic ways for portions of the pandemic?), it was a one woman show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. National Theatre Live: Fleabag is a recording of the West End run of the stage version - stripped down, minimalist, but still as emotionally raw and painfully funny as the full TV adaptation. December 19 at the Lido. Trailer. Tickets.
What we put in our mouths this month (WWPIOMTM)
We managed to fit quite a lot in our mouth this month.
We were on the road stopped at Raglan Roast where you’ll get a ginormous rectangle of pizza for $11 a slice. One weekend last month, having missed McDonald’s breakfast, we indulged in Mr Twist: the hungover half of us got the big breakfast bagel, while the fresh one got the bruschetta cream cheese. Both were happy. We were ready to try Good George again and nabbed the alcoholic lemonade. It was fine.
Alpha Street Kitchen
Serving up modern bistro classics on a sunny outdoor deck, on our first visit to Alpha Street Kitchen (sorry Richard, we’ve been meaning to swing by for ages!) we sampled the sumac spiced chicken and the burger. We’re increasingly flexatarian these days but absolutely love some of the more meat forward menu options, like a Wagyu picanha with jumbo prawns and the eye fillet with hand cut chips and crayfish butter.
Rainforest Malaysia (Rototuna)
We’re ever on the look out for independent eateries that aren’t in Hamilton East, and Rainforest Malaysia isn’t just the best Malaysian in town (with some good competition in there - our previous loyalty lay with now sadly departed Lazart, but we are big fans of Penang Street Food up the north end of Victoria Street), but is one of the best places we’ve ever eaten in this town. The Hainanese chicken rice is perfect (we’ve tried to make this at home and ended up with sad boiled chicken - a dish best left to the professionals). If you load your fork up with this, sambal and cucumber we are talking the most perfectly balance forkful of food in the city.
Amphora
One of the highlights of our year has been a low key evening spent slowly making our way through a bottle of the new Beaujolais Nouveau drop, along with cheese and saucisson at Amphora (at Made). More recently, and because it was someone’s birthday, we started with a glass of the petit chablis ($25), transitioning thereafter to to the $13 tap rose. Both were excellent, and enjoyed on the deck with the duck liver pate in the late afternoon sun.
Shanghai
Did you know Shanghai, the recentish arrival to the Skycity Hamilton, offers a lunchtime yum cha menu? As always, everything we ordered was at a consistently high standard, but what left us the most gobsmacked was an impossibly pillowy steamed pork bun. Soup dumplings also thoroughly recommended.
Reggie’s - is it any good?
We have been to Reggie’s probably more times than we should really admit. We sampled the prawn spaghetti with crayfish bisque, the meatballs (make sure you get some focaccia on the side to soak up that sauce!). We’ve had the lamb ragu; many of the pizzas (they’re all good but special mention to the zucchini). The squid is exquisitely tender. Our only complaint is that on one occasion we had to leave all but about 3 bites of tiramisu on the table because of the lack of non-pizza take away boxes at the time, which we understand is no longer the case. So yes, we thoroughly researched this one in the name of science and it's very, very good.
A few hyper-local gift ideas
The Duck Island ice cream scoop. The Hayes Common t-shirt, or tote. Local artist Keirryn has immortalised many Kirikiriroa landmarks. The Found x Loryn Spicy Tote. There’s also the Pekapeka-core tshirt from Go Eco, the funds of which go to helping save and education people on our bats. We are really spoilt for choice in this town for local pottery. Lauren Wu is a favourite of ours - here, or at the Framing House.
Keirryn Hintz, a teacher at Knighton Normal School by day, immortalises Kirikiriroa’s local buildings in her other time. Her latest print is of the Wonderhorse entrance, a certain door some of us know too well. Prints available in the Larder at Made or via Instagram.
For booze, well, may we recommend anything from the Cambridge Distillery. We walked away from our recent interview with the Knocknaveagh 1862, but for a festive vibe you could try their limoncello.
Perfume is huge at the moment - and the more niche a producer the better. If you want a perfume made here in Kirikiriroa, here is it.
Expleo sauces - best browsed in store either in Te Awamutu or at Made. The Rudi’s sourdough starter kit.
And then a word about Gift certificates - there are few situations we would suggest swapping your real money for fake, expiring money. Except gifts with local, independent businesses.
And two in Hamilton spring to mind:
A gift certificate for your loved one’s hairdresser is always a good bet, but someone you know is between hairdressers can we recommend Tenielle Gillies at Flyger? She cuts a bob you could sharpen a kitchen knife with.
If you’re after a massage or beauty treatment, may we recommend The Villa. Karina came highly recommended to us a couple of years ago, and we haven’t used anyone else since.
