Gin Feature
Four Pillars co-founders Stuart Gregor, Cameron Mackenzie and Matt Jones
GIN IS BOOMING - but flavoured gin is exploding
AUSTRALIA’S THIRST FOR GIN IS SHOWING NO SIGNS OF SLOWING DOWN AND DISTILLERS ARE KEEPING UP WITH DEMAND BY CREATING ORIGINAL FLAVOURS FROM LOCAL INGREDIENTS. HOWEVER, THERE ARE NOW HUNDREDS OF GINS FOR CONSUMERS TO CHOOSE FROM AND NOT ALL BRANDS CAN SURVIVE IN A CROWDED MARKET, INDUSTRY LEADERS WARN. The good news for retailers is that flavoured gin now represents $78 million in annual sales - and that number is growing. People are looking for new and interesting flavours, which Australia has an abundance of, says The West Winds Gin co-founder and chief executive officer, Paul White. “Australia has ingredients that don’t exist anywhere else in the world: bush tomato, wattle seed, Davidson plum and sea parsley, [as examples], and there are no rules as long as the gin contains more juniper than
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anything else and more than 37.5 per cent alcohol,” Paul said. “So you can make it taste however you like.” Australian Distillers Association president and Four Pillars gin co-founder, Stuart Gregor agrees and says the gin boom is more than a fad. “Flavoured gin is like a grown-up version of where vodka went twenty years ago,” Stuart said. “Vodka also went through a flavour explosion, but they were all fake. There was vanilla vodka and pepper vodka,
but all the distillers were doing was taking vodka and throwing in syrup. Whereas gin distillers start from the bottom up and look at what can be thrown into the botanical basket or pot to make the gin authentically different rather than manufactured different.” Four Pillars began in 2013 and has often been ahead of the gin crowd. The YarraValley based distillery released its Bloody Shiraz Gin - made with local shiraz grapes - in 2015, well ahead of the pink gin craze.
