Hello and welcome! My name is Corinne Mossati and I’m the Founder/Editor of The Gourmantic Garden, an edible and cocktail garden website with the ethos of ‘Grow It Eat It Drink It’.
Corinne Mossati – Photo © The Gourmantic Garden
I’m a Sydney-based Drinks Writer specialising in cocktails and spirits. Some of you may know me from Gourmantic which I founded (2009-2020) and Cocktails & Bars which I launched in 2015 before launching The Gourmantic Garden in 2020. Over the many years that I’ve been in the industry, I’ve written extensively about cocktails, spirits, bars, food, travel, interviewed numerous local and international industry luminaries and judged several cocktail and spirit competitions.
I’m also a cocktail developer and I grow a wide range of botanicals that naturally end up in my cocktails. You may have seen my segment on Gardening Australia with host Costa Georgiadis showcasing botanical beverages from my garden. You can read more about my Botanical Beverages segment here as well as watch the video. I’m a guest contributor to Real World Gardener radio program and you can listen my radio segments here. I’ve also been featured in Breathe Magazine UK in an article on garden syrups and cocktails I have developed.
In 2021, Randwick Council awarded me Best Edible Garden and Eco Champion Awards. In 2022, The Gourmantic Garden was the first place winner in the Grow It Local Awards in the Best Veggie Patch Name category. For more information, visit In the Media page or my website, Corinne Mossati – Drinks Writer. Cocktail Gardener.
My Edible & Cocktail Garden
My garden is located in a coastal part of Sydney where I live with my wonderful partner and birds that have adopted us and made the garden their home. It’s situated in the Temperate Zone of Australia (Australian Plant Hardiness Zone 4, no frost, equivalent to Zone 10 in the USA). Like many urban dwellers, I don’t have a big space or a proper garden but a small courtyard that is open on three aspects and gets the sun for most of the day. The area is mostly paved aside from a border of poor-quality sandy soil that’s between 5-15cm deep sitting on concrete.
I started edible gardening in January 2019 with no prior knowledge. 95% of my garden is set up from repurposed materials saved from landfill, a deliberate direction I took to apply sustainability practices in the garden. Playing in the dirt – as I like to call it – grounded me and gave me a way to de-stress, get some outdoor exercise and maintain a healthy mindset.
My initial goal was to achieve a degree of self-sufficiency, to grow at least 3-4 types of produce that I would never buy again, to practise sustainability, minimise single use, repurpose and reconnect with nature and the seasons. As soon as I developed some gardening knowledge, I was eager to turn my garden-grown produce into cocktails.
I grow around 200 to 250 varieties of plants, mainly edibles which contribute to my cocktail garden. My passion is growing Australian native plants with over 50 types of bush food which enables me to learn about our native plants, share the knowledge and ultimately put them to use in recipes and cocktail ingredients. Here’s a snapshot of what I’m growing in The Gourmantic Garden.
My tagline is Grow It Eat It Drink It and it’s the hashtag I use on Instagram. My ethos is simple. I strongly believe there’s no such thing as having a ‘black thumb’. With a little know-how, anyone can grow their own food.
I hope I have planted the seed of interest. If you’re contemplating growing your own food in a small space, be it a few herbs on your balcony or some veggies in containers, learning about bush food or contemplating growing in a raised garden bed, this website is for you. To be notified of updates, simply enter your email in the sidebar and you’ll get a notification every time a new article is published. I don’t spam. I’m too busy playing with dirt in the garden! You can also follow me on Instagram @the.gourmanticgarden.
If you’d like to know more about me, visit my website Corinne Mossati – Drinks Writer. Cocktail Gardener.
Updated 6 February 2023