Five of a kind: Tasting flights

Coffee

If you want to discover new blends and flavours or push your palate to the next level, consider a coffee flight. Market Lane offers seasonal flights of pour-over coffee - try three different kinds, each with tasting notes so you can learn a little more about its origins and characteristics. Share a flight between two or three people - go solo and you'll be jitterbugging out of there.
Market Lane, shop 13, 163 Commercial Rd, South Yarra, 9804 7434. Flights $12.

Cheese

Cheese names can sound more like obscure philosophers than dairy products, so a flight is the perfect way to educate yourself. Cheddar that actually tastes like English lavender! Oregon cheese smoked over hazelnut shells! The cheesemongers at St Kilda's Milk the Cow put together cheeseboards designed to complement beer, whisky and even sake, but the classic cheese and wine flight ($18) is a delicious, luxurious experience.
Milk the Cow, 1/157 Fitzroy St, St Kilda, 9537 2225. From $16-$35.

Beer

The Local Taphouse offers a tasting paddle of five 90ml pours as a way of showcasing craft brews. Choose your own amber adventure or be guided by staff who will order the tastes to suit your palate, from lightest to most complex in style, and serving them with palate-cleansing water crackers. There's a rustic beauty to them, with specially designed tasting glasses slotted into a wooden paddle, framing a surprising rainbow of amber liquids.
The Local Taphouse, 184 Carlisle St, East St Kilda, 9537 2633. $17.50.

Hot chocolate

At Monsieur Truffe, that lush, hushed and revered chocolate haven, sample a tasting plate of hot chocolate, with three styles to choose from. Get to know the differing couverture chocolate flavours, characteristics and intensities - maybe start with an easy 60 per cent Dominican Republic or a smooth 72 per cent Ecuadorean, then contrast it against the super-earthy, cocoa-heavy 85 per cent African blend.
Monsieur Truffe, 90 Smith St, Collingwood, 9416 3101. From $8.50.

Tequila

As with most spirits, there's a complexity to be discovered if you go beyond the standard commercial tequila offerings. Mamasita offers flights that involve exploring three or four tequilas (or mescal), either from different distilleries but of a similar barrel age, or from the same distillery but of differing ages. Enjoy very sensible 20ml pours, along with some food, so you can retain what you learn instead of losing it to the haziest of recollections.
Mamasita, 1/11 Collins St, city, 9650 3821. From $30-$110.