May 1, 2025 • 14 mins
We take a look across the state this week and discover the expansive world that is SA gin distilling. How exactly did a spirit that was once made in bath tubs, become so popular?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I Heart Essay.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Can we do something for you, mister Bondu Just a drink,
A Martini shake and munster.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
The martini drink of choice for superspires like James Bond
and the rich and famous, including Churchill, Sinatra, Madonna, even
Queen Elizabeth the iond not to mention lonely business travelers
around Australia and across the globe. Four parts gin, a
splash of driver mooth and there you have it, class
in a glass.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I'm Jackie Limb with iHeart Essay. This week we looking
into South Australia's booming gin industry. Australia is at the
forefront of a global gin renaissance. An essay is definitely
helping that resurgence along. In fact, Essa gin is enjoying
massive popularity, not just at home but across the world.
But how did a drink that was once concocted in
bath tubs end up where it is today, putting our
(00:53):
state on the world alcohol map. I spoke to head
Disteeler at Still Friends on Kangaro Island, John Lark, who
we also founded Australia's first ever dedicated gin distillery Kangaroo Island, spirits.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
So back in about two thousand and two, at our wedding,
my wife Sarah and I, we were both equally years
involved in this process. We were discussing our options with
my brother Bill Lark, who of course is now famous
for setting up craft distilling in Australia in nineteen ninety
three with the Lark Distillery and the whole Tasmani and
whiskey movement, and we said to him, why don't you
(01:26):
make gin? And they kind of made an escency gin,
but they said to me, he said to me and Sarah,
the gin's never going to go anywhere. I wouldn't bother
with that, you should make whiskey. And I guess, being
my brother and also being very different from my brother,
we decided to set up a ginger stillery and it
all took off from there. At that time there was
only about thirteen or fourteen small distillery licenses in the country,
(01:49):
so yeah, we set up the first dedicated ging distillery.
There are others who were making gins with essences, but
it wasn't their focus and that was our focus and
the notion of blending flavors and tannicles. So that's how
we started.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, like you say, obviously a very big distilling family
with Bill your brother as well, so you've both kind
of taken on and conquered your own sort of areas.
So what's the difference in distilling inessa compared to in
Tasmania where he kicked things off.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
I guess there's not an awful lot of difference apart
from the fact that our products are very different. Risky
is a very different product. It's you know, basically, you're
essentially brewing malt unlike a beer without the hops, So
you turned in the starch into sugar and you're fermenting
that to alcohol and then you're aging it for a
minimum of two years. With gin, you have what you
(02:38):
call the hero botanicals of juniper coriander angelica in a
classic gin back in those days, and anything after that
is what gives your product personality and character. So for us,
that was a lot more fun to play with. And
of course no matter where you are in Australia, there
are a myriad of things that you can use. In
those very early days, like we had to when we
started our cellar Door, which is by then about two
(03:01):
thousand and six or seven on Ngaroo Island. We had
to explain to people what crafting was because there wasn't
any others, and we would often be comparing our gins
and blind tastings with the likes of Hendrix, Bombay, Gordons, etc.
And we started to look around and one of the
gins that influenced us was gin Mah in Spain, which
(03:22):
was a second generation of ginder still is in one
family who said to their fathers and uncles that we're
going to make a gin that reflects our own backyard
and broke this tradition, this English kind of tradition. Bearing
in mind at the time that everyone saw gin as
being the English drink, but in actual fact, the Spanish
and even the Philippines city even more were producing more
(03:45):
gin by volume and per head capita than the UK
were back in the early two thousands. So we were
very interested in that notion of finding botanicals from our
backyard you could then translate into a gin and also
pulling apart in our minds whole thing around aroma. If
aroma is forty or eighty percent of flavor comes from smell,
(04:08):
and then there is a lot to be said about
the fact that we can evoke a memory in a
millisecond when we smell something. You hop in a lift
and there's an elderly woman there is to wear the
very old fashioned perfume that your grandmother wore and you
can have a millisecond flashback to that memory. Well, it's similar.
We believe in terms of gin that we finally produced
that one world's champion Gin in twenty nineteen had a
(04:31):
plant called Ollyria, which is the smell that you smell
when you walk down the sand dunes on a hot
summer's stay on a beach in southern Australia. So we
like to think that we evoked those sorts of.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Memories and well, the name Lark is massive across the country.
Another big player in essay is twenty third Street Distilling
in Renmark. After starting as a winery around a century ago,
a drought in the early two thousands meant the property
fell into disrepair until it was bored and transformed in
twenty fourteen, but the science one hundred year old copper
pots still in use. Our reporter in the Riverland, Rob Lurie,
(05:02):
spoke to distiller Paul Burnett.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
It was bought by the Bickfords group and three stills
were commissioned and they are required from over South Australia,
so we could start making brandy, rum, whiskey and most
importantly gin.
Speaker 6 (05:15):
Where does that sit within the trend of these discillaries
popping up around the state.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
We're probably at the forefront. There was probably three or
four major players and we were part of that. Ultimately,
we were really targeting high quality gin to try and
bring people a new perspective and a greater environment of
quality around gin, which had been probably previously seen as
a cheaper drink for older people. And at the price
(05:41):
point where we are, where you're looking at eighty dollars
for a bottle of gin, you expect high end quality
and that's what we're delivering. So we're very proud.
Speaker 6 (05:49):
Why do you think so many people are embracing gin
and why are so many of these distilleries getting in
on the action around the state.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Well, mean, I can only go from microspective and I
used to shy away from gin. I would have had
a whiskey or a red wine because it was easy,
there was no risk, and I didn't want to sit
down and make gin and tonics and martini's. But once
I got exposed to it by a few friends, and
then I started working here. Martini is probably my favorite drink,
and you discover that gin and tonic or gin and soda.
(06:20):
They are very sessionable and they're great in summer, and
so when it's forty seven degrees in Renmark, there's really
nothing better to have to quench your thirst than a
gin and tonic.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
We've seen twenty third Street open up with events like
the Renmark croquet Club. Is that sort of the next
step taking the brand, getting it out there, doing more
events sort of based where do you see the future?
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Definitely more of those nights and so that the movie
nights that have been one of our initiatives, and we've
had some great success getting twenty third Street into Adelaide ovals.
So you know, slowly but surely we're growing the brand
and hoopefully those croquetine nights and I love seeing the
marquee at twenty third Street. That means, you know, we're
going to have people sitting under there, relaxing, creating great
memories of this place and then hopefully if they've traveled here,
(07:04):
taking it back that the river has an exciting place
with high quality spirit.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
We'll have more after the break, I heard, essays, I
heart essays, welcome back. We're talking about the wonderful and
growing world that is gin distilling in regional South Australia.
With over one hundred distilleries in our state alone, we
figure there must be a reason, perhaps even a secret,
(07:28):
to why people gravitate down south. Our reporter in murray Bridge,
Jenny Lenman, spoke to co founder of Little Juniper Co.
Stuart Mackenzie, whose award winning gin is expanding and setting
up shop in the Adelaide Hills.
Speaker 7 (07:41):
I had my first gin and tonic at an early
age with my mother and fell in love with a flavor.
And then I suppose I was drinking gin before it
was popular. Had a godfather that worked for Penhols and
Hardy's as the national export manager. And then it wasn't
until cobog found myself sitting around with nothing to do.
(08:01):
I've got my license built are still and started tinkering in.
Before you knew it, we'd one gold medals in San Francisco,
in London. It just snowboard from there.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Wow, what do you think it was about your products,
your gin that resonated so much with your customers.
Speaker 7 (08:16):
I don't try to reinvent the wheel. But at the
same time, I don't believe in creating something everyone else
is mating. So our signature GIN was my first riff
on a London dry style. It's definitely not a London dry.
It's twenty one botanicals. It's quite complex, but you can
sit at neat it's grating cocktails. It just does everything.
It's a very versatile gin while being very full bodied
and flavorful. So I think that's the difference with us,
(08:39):
is that the quality is there. We haven't released one
hundred products. We've released things slowly, we'd perfect them. We
work on something that's a little different.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
To the norm.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
What do you think it is about Gin that's such
a wonderful spirit.
Speaker 7 (08:51):
I think Gin's had a big resurgence thanks to the
quality of tonics that are out there now, the companies
like Fevertree and Long Rays in Australia. With Gin, you,
specially in Australia, you are not tied to rules, so
we kind of stick to the traditional UK rules. The
greater percentage of botanicals should be a junip berries. You
can be very creative and especially with the botanicals that
(09:12):
we have in Australia that you can't find anywhere else
in the world. You can create something that's unique, So
it'd be very hard to find two gins that are
exactly the same.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
What is great about working with South Australian products.
Speaker 7 (09:24):
We have a lot of farmers and growers that contact
us and say, hey, we want to help you out.
We've got farms that have a lot of waste product
that we could turn into an otav so it could
turn apples into a brandy, et cetera, any sort of fruit.
So once we move into a new distillery, there's a
lot of creativity, there's a lot to offer. There's the
freshness of it being on your back door. You don't
have to have it traveling for a week from Indostate.
(09:46):
We just have great produce here. I think, you know,
you look at the grape industry and the wine industry
and what it's done, that's some of the best in
the world.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, tell us more about what's happening at Chapman's factory.
The old factory that you're transforming into a new distillery.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
Flow process that we're getting there. So a lot of
the site has already been developed. Friends of ours have
got a distillery up on the hill which used to
be the old chili units. They totally stripped that and
rebuilt that building that's tin shed. Go up and see them.
They're great guys. So we've got our distillery, or the
production processes will be moved there. We've got a gin school.
We're putting in a commercial kitchen, a cellar door and
(10:21):
a bar that can hold two hundred people, and then
a separate area for functions which will hold around another hundred.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Well the best for it. It sounds like you're creating a
really marvelous space.
Speaker 7 (10:31):
Yeah, thank you. After what happened with COVID. Our whole
idea of the business pre COVID was to have a
space that people can go to and relax and socialize,
and since COVID that's become even more important. We just
want to make a space where people feel happy and
safe and talk to each other and get back to
what we used.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
To And from the hills to the far North, Albi
Trotter is doing big things in the Flinders Ranges. I
had a chance to speak to him about what makes
his products unique.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
We predominantly use native food that goes around around us,
so view things foods, native foods like quandons and native
lemographs and desert lines. So the predominantly flavor the gins
with products actually grow naturally around us. And we're in
quite a higher tourist area as well, which that sort
of goes hand in hand with using the native foods.
(11:18):
And now everyone's got a strong interest on what's growing
around here and what they can actually use in food
and beverages.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, and a lot of people make their spirits their gin,
you know, maybe in cooler climates. I can't say the
same for the Flinders gets a bit warm up there.
So is there anything that needs to be done differently
in your neck.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Of the woods? No, not really. It gets hot up
here during the summer, but also gets quite cool during
the winter as well. So as far as climate was
if you're making wine or you need to have a
temperature controvel when you're doing gin, it doesn't really. The
climate doesn't affect it that much.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
How did you come to starting your business? How did
you know just jump into this fee it first or
did you kind.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Of coma So I've got a I'm a baker by trade,
and I've got a strong interest in making wine and cheese,
and that sort of thing, and have done so for
many years. I've also got cousins in the south of
Italy that make a product called a marrow, and their
distillery is quite interesting. A marrow is actually they call
(12:22):
it a digestive though, but it's just like a flavor.
It's like a gin, but it's flavored with pretty much
whatever grows around them. When I've been there, they've actually
walked out of the distillery and they've looked around pretty
much what's in the garden or what nunna's growing in
the garden, and they flavor the gin, flavor their spirit
with that what's going around them. That sort of inspired
me to use what grows around us up here with
(12:44):
natives and so forth. And tourism and corn is quite high,
and we get quite a lot of tourists coming through
the town and looking to try stuff. This actually grown,
grown and used in products around this area. So it's
actually quite well. We started about three years ago and
it's just it's gone from strength to strenth. Tourism is
(13:08):
quite a big part of that as well. We get
our tourist season pretty much starts now right through to
the September, and we get lots of lots of caravans
and lots of kids in school hollows coming up camping here.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
As far as the landscape of gin is going in
essay at the moment, there are so many popping up
around the place. You know, what would you say to
someone who is just about to kick things off?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
It is quite a busy area in essay, and we
actually are making really good quality gins. I'm part of
the Discilla's essay group and I'm on the committee, and
we're actually producing really really good quality gin, particularly out
of essays, and winning quite a few awards as well.
I just think if you're starting out, you've just got
(13:51):
to position to yourself in the right spot, probably not
too close to another distillery, and have a bit of
a focus or a bit of a story on what
you're going to do. So, you know, we differentiate ourselves
because we use a lot of native botannicals to go
around us, and I think I think people really appreciate
the difference. And also there's no distillery within two hundred
klometers of us either, so I think that all helps
(14:12):
us as well.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yes, you're right, it is, of course, June's been around
long before essays industry boom. The story goes Dutch soldiers
used to take a swig or two before battle back
in the mid fifteen hundreds, and it seemed to have
a calming effect and also numb to the pain. English
soldiers brought the idea back to the UK and proceeded
to make their own version of the clear liquid, also
coining the term Dutch courage. That's it for this week.
(14:36):
Don't forget you can hear iHeart Essay and the iHeart
app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jackie Limb.
Join us again next week for more of the stories
you want to hear. I Heeart Essay the Voice of
South Australia.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
I Heartso
I Heart Essay.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Can we do something for you, mister Bondu Just a drink,
A Martini shake and munster.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
The martini drink of choice for superspires like James Bond
and the rich and famous, including Churchill, Sinatra, Madonna, even
Queen Elizabeth the iond not to mention lonely business travelers
around Australia and across the globe. Four parts gin, a
splash of driver mooth and there you have it, class
in a glass.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I'm Jackie Limb with iHeart Essay. This week we looking
into South Australia's booming gin industry. Australia is at the
forefront of a global gin renaissance. An essay is definitely
helping that resurgence along. In fact, Essa gin is enjoying
massive popularity, not just at home but across the world.
But how did a drink that was once concocted in
bath tubs end up where it is today, putting our
(00:53):
state on the world alcohol map. I spoke to head
Disteeler at Still Friends on Kangaro Island, John Lark, who
we also founded Australia's first ever dedicated gin distillery Kangaroo Island, spirits.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
So back in about two thousand and two, at our wedding,
my wife Sarah and I, we were both equally years
involved in this process. We were discussing our options with
my brother Bill Lark, who of course is now famous
for setting up craft distilling in Australia in nineteen ninety
three with the Lark Distillery and the whole Tasmani and
whiskey movement, and we said to him, why don't you
(01:26):
make gin? And they kind of made an escency gin,
but they said to me, he said to me and Sarah,
the gin's never going to go anywhere. I wouldn't bother
with that, you should make whiskey. And I guess, being
my brother and also being very different from my brother,
we decided to set up a ginger stillery and it
all took off from there. At that time there was
only about thirteen or fourteen small distillery licenses in the country,
(01:49):
so yeah, we set up the first dedicated ging distillery.
There are others who were making gins with essences, but
it wasn't their focus and that was our focus and
the notion of blending flavors and tannicles. So that's how
we started.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, like you say, obviously a very big distilling family
with Bill your brother as well, so you've both kind
of taken on and conquered your own sort of areas.
So what's the difference in distilling inessa compared to in
Tasmania where he kicked things off.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
I guess there's not an awful lot of difference apart
from the fact that our products are very different. Risky
is a very different product. It's you know, basically, you're
essentially brewing malt unlike a beer without the hops, So
you turned in the starch into sugar and you're fermenting
that to alcohol and then you're aging it for a
minimum of two years. With gin, you have what you
(02:38):
call the hero botanicals of juniper coriander angelica in a
classic gin back in those days, and anything after that
is what gives your product personality and character. So for us,
that was a lot more fun to play with. And
of course no matter where you are in Australia, there
are a myriad of things that you can use. In
those very early days, like we had to when we
started our cellar Door, which is by then about two
(03:01):
thousand and six or seven on Ngaroo Island. We had
to explain to people what crafting was because there wasn't
any others, and we would often be comparing our gins
and blind tastings with the likes of Hendrix, Bombay, Gordons, etc.
And we started to look around and one of the
gins that influenced us was gin Mah in Spain, which
(03:22):
was a second generation of ginder still is in one
family who said to their fathers and uncles that we're
going to make a gin that reflects our own backyard
and broke this tradition, this English kind of tradition. Bearing
in mind at the time that everyone saw gin as
being the English drink, but in actual fact, the Spanish
and even the Philippines city even more were producing more
(03:45):
gin by volume and per head capita than the UK
were back in the early two thousands. So we were
very interested in that notion of finding botanicals from our
backyard you could then translate into a gin and also
pulling apart in our minds whole thing around aroma. If
aroma is forty or eighty percent of flavor comes from smell,
(04:08):
and then there is a lot to be said about
the fact that we can evoke a memory in a
millisecond when we smell something. You hop in a lift
and there's an elderly woman there is to wear the
very old fashioned perfume that your grandmother wore and you
can have a millisecond flashback to that memory. Well, it's similar.
We believe in terms of gin that we finally produced
that one world's champion Gin in twenty nineteen had a
(04:31):
plant called Ollyria, which is the smell that you smell
when you walk down the sand dunes on a hot
summer's stay on a beach in southern Australia. So we
like to think that we evoked those sorts of.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Memories and well, the name Lark is massive across the country.
Another big player in essay is twenty third Street Distilling
in Renmark. After starting as a winery around a century ago,
a drought in the early two thousands meant the property
fell into disrepair until it was bored and transformed in
twenty fourteen, but the science one hundred year old copper
pots still in use. Our reporter in the Riverland, Rob Lurie,
(05:02):
spoke to distiller Paul Burnett.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
It was bought by the Bickfords group and three stills
were commissioned and they are required from over South Australia,
so we could start making brandy, rum, whiskey and most
importantly gin.
Speaker 6 (05:15):
Where does that sit within the trend of these discillaries
popping up around the state.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
We're probably at the forefront. There was probably three or
four major players and we were part of that. Ultimately,
we were really targeting high quality gin to try and
bring people a new perspective and a greater environment of
quality around gin, which had been probably previously seen as
a cheaper drink for older people. And at the price
(05:41):
point where we are, where you're looking at eighty dollars
for a bottle of gin, you expect high end quality
and that's what we're delivering. So we're very proud.
Speaker 6 (05:49):
Why do you think so many people are embracing gin
and why are so many of these distilleries getting in
on the action around the state.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Well, mean, I can only go from microspective and I
used to shy away from gin. I would have had
a whiskey or a red wine because it was easy,
there was no risk, and I didn't want to sit
down and make gin and tonics and martini's. But once
I got exposed to it by a few friends, and
then I started working here. Martini is probably my favorite drink,
and you discover that gin and tonic or gin and soda.
(06:20):
They are very sessionable and they're great in summer, and
so when it's forty seven degrees in Renmark, there's really
nothing better to have to quench your thirst than a
gin and tonic.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
We've seen twenty third Street open up with events like
the Renmark croquet Club. Is that sort of the next
step taking the brand, getting it out there, doing more
events sort of based where do you see the future?
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Definitely more of those nights and so that the movie
nights that have been one of our initiatives, and we've
had some great success getting twenty third Street into Adelaide ovals.
So you know, slowly but surely we're growing the brand
and hoopefully those croquetine nights and I love seeing the
marquee at twenty third Street. That means, you know, we're
going to have people sitting under there, relaxing, creating great
memories of this place and then hopefully if they've traveled here,
(07:04):
taking it back that the river has an exciting place
with high quality spirit.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
We'll have more after the break, I heard, essays, I
heart essays, welcome back. We're talking about the wonderful and
growing world that is gin distilling in regional South Australia.
With over one hundred distilleries in our state alone, we
figure there must be a reason, perhaps even a secret,
(07:28):
to why people gravitate down south. Our reporter in murray Bridge,
Jenny Lenman, spoke to co founder of Little Juniper Co.
Stuart Mackenzie, whose award winning gin is expanding and setting
up shop in the Adelaide Hills.
Speaker 7 (07:41):
I had my first gin and tonic at an early
age with my mother and fell in love with a flavor.
And then I suppose I was drinking gin before it
was popular. Had a godfather that worked for Penhols and
Hardy's as the national export manager. And then it wasn't
until cobog found myself sitting around with nothing to do.
(08:01):
I've got my license built are still and started tinkering in.
Before you knew it, we'd one gold medals in San Francisco,
in London. It just snowboard from there.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Wow, what do you think it was about your products,
your gin that resonated so much with your customers.
Speaker 7 (08:16):
I don't try to reinvent the wheel. But at the
same time, I don't believe in creating something everyone else
is mating. So our signature GIN was my first riff
on a London dry style. It's definitely not a London dry.
It's twenty one botanicals. It's quite complex, but you can
sit at neat it's grating cocktails. It just does everything.
It's a very versatile gin while being very full bodied
and flavorful. So I think that's the difference with us,
(08:39):
is that the quality is there. We haven't released one
hundred products. We've released things slowly, we'd perfect them. We
work on something that's a little different.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
To the norm.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
What do you think it is about Gin that's such
a wonderful spirit.
Speaker 7 (08:51):
I think Gin's had a big resurgence thanks to the
quality of tonics that are out there now, the companies
like Fevertree and Long Rays in Australia. With Gin, you,
specially in Australia, you are not tied to rules, so
we kind of stick to the traditional UK rules. The
greater percentage of botanicals should be a junip berries. You
can be very creative and especially with the botanicals that
(09:12):
we have in Australia that you can't find anywhere else
in the world. You can create something that's unique, So
it'd be very hard to find two gins that are
exactly the same.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
What is great about working with South Australian products.
Speaker 7 (09:24):
We have a lot of farmers and growers that contact
us and say, hey, we want to help you out.
We've got farms that have a lot of waste product
that we could turn into an otav so it could
turn apples into a brandy, et cetera, any sort of fruit.
So once we move into a new distillery, there's a
lot of creativity, there's a lot to offer. There's the
freshness of it being on your back door. You don't
have to have it traveling for a week from Indostate.
(09:46):
We just have great produce here. I think, you know,
you look at the grape industry and the wine industry
and what it's done, that's some of the best in
the world.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, tell us more about what's happening at Chapman's factory.
The old factory that you're transforming into a new distillery.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
Flow process that we're getting there. So a lot of
the site has already been developed. Friends of ours have
got a distillery up on the hill which used to
be the old chili units. They totally stripped that and
rebuilt that building that's tin shed. Go up and see them.
They're great guys. So we've got our distillery, or the
production processes will be moved there. We've got a gin school.
We're putting in a commercial kitchen, a cellar door and
(10:21):
a bar that can hold two hundred people, and then
a separate area for functions which will hold around another hundred.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Well the best for it. It sounds like you're creating a
really marvelous space.
Speaker 7 (10:31):
Yeah, thank you. After what happened with COVID. Our whole
idea of the business pre COVID was to have a
space that people can go to and relax and socialize,
and since COVID that's become even more important. We just
want to make a space where people feel happy and
safe and talk to each other and get back to
what we used.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
To And from the hills to the far North, Albi
Trotter is doing big things in the Flinders Ranges. I
had a chance to speak to him about what makes
his products unique.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
We predominantly use native food that goes around around us,
so view things foods, native foods like quandons and native
lemographs and desert lines. So the predominantly flavor the gins
with products actually grow naturally around us. And we're in
quite a higher tourist area as well, which that sort
of goes hand in hand with using the native foods.
(11:18):
And now everyone's got a strong interest on what's growing
around here and what they can actually use in food
and beverages.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, and a lot of people make their spirits their gin,
you know, maybe in cooler climates. I can't say the
same for the Flinders gets a bit warm up there.
So is there anything that needs to be done differently
in your neck.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Of the woods? No, not really. It gets hot up
here during the summer, but also gets quite cool during
the winter as well. So as far as climate was
if you're making wine or you need to have a
temperature controvel when you're doing gin, it doesn't really. The
climate doesn't affect it that much.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
How did you come to starting your business? How did
you know just jump into this fee it first or
did you kind.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Of coma So I've got a I'm a baker by trade,
and I've got a strong interest in making wine and cheese,
and that sort of thing, and have done so for
many years. I've also got cousins in the south of
Italy that make a product called a marrow, and their
distillery is quite interesting. A marrow is actually they call
(12:22):
it a digestive though, but it's just like a flavor.
It's like a gin, but it's flavored with pretty much
whatever grows around them. When I've been there, they've actually
walked out of the distillery and they've looked around pretty
much what's in the garden or what nunna's growing in
the garden, and they flavor the gin, flavor their spirit
with that what's going around them. That sort of inspired
me to use what grows around us up here with
(12:44):
natives and so forth. And tourism and corn is quite high,
and we get quite a lot of tourists coming through
the town and looking to try stuff. This actually grown,
grown and used in products around this area. So it's
actually quite well. We started about three years ago and
it's just it's gone from strength to strenth. Tourism is
(13:08):
quite a big part of that as well. We get
our tourist season pretty much starts now right through to
the September, and we get lots of lots of caravans
and lots of kids in school hollows coming up camping here.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
As far as the landscape of gin is going in
essay at the moment, there are so many popping up
around the place. You know, what would you say to
someone who is just about to kick things off?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
It is quite a busy area in essay, and we
actually are making really good quality gins. I'm part of
the Discilla's essay group and I'm on the committee, and
we're actually producing really really good quality gin, particularly out
of essays, and winning quite a few awards as well.
I just think if you're starting out, you've just got
(13:51):
to position to yourself in the right spot, probably not
too close to another distillery, and have a bit of
a focus or a bit of a story on what
you're going to do. So, you know, we differentiate ourselves
because we use a lot of native botannicals to go
around us, and I think I think people really appreciate
the difference. And also there's no distillery within two hundred
klometers of us either, so I think that all helps
(14:12):
us as well.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yes, you're right, it is, of course, June's been around
long before essays industry boom. The story goes Dutch soldiers
used to take a swig or two before battle back
in the mid fifteen hundreds, and it seemed to have
a calming effect and also numb to the pain. English
soldiers brought the idea back to the UK and proceeded
to make their own version of the clear liquid, also
coining the term Dutch courage. That's it for this week.
(14:36):
Don't forget you can hear iHeart Essay and the iHeart
app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jackie Limb.
Join us again next week for more of the stories
you want to hear. I Heeart Essay the Voice of
South Australia.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
I Heartso
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