Ask anyone what the national British drink is and, after Pimms, it’s likely their answer will be a good gin – usually with tonic. It’s a spirit almost distilled into our DNA – heck, there’s even an entire style of gin named after our capital city. So you’d assume we’re the best makers of it then too, right? Well… Australian distillery Four Pillars is proving that wrong.
The company has recently been named International Gin Producer of the Year at the International Wine & Spirit Competition – no small feat. It’s especially impressive when you realise that this is the first time ever that any company has achieved the title of world’s best gin maker three times at the prestigious award ceremony (described by founder, Matt Jones as “the ‘Oscars’ of the gin industry”). I think it’s fair to say, then, that the brand Four Pillars is operating at a relatively peerless level.
Founded in Melbourne in 2013 by three friends (Cameron Mackenzie, Stuart Gregor and Matt Jones), Four Pillars was, for all intents and purposes, born in a garden shed. After two years of working with minimal means and hand-bottling in that shed, they expanded into a former timber yard in Victoria’s Yarra Valley.
Working at the Four Pillars distillery
The Four Pillars team call Australia “the most delicious, diverse and creative place on earth,” and it’s hard to disagree when you taste their superlative range of gins. Take, for example, the Olive Leaf Gin. Replete with savoury notes and herbaceous undertones, it’s the perfect, saline partner to a Martini and serves as a counterpoint to the many juniper-heavy gins that often seem too fruity to truly work in the clean, classic cocktail. Or the genre-bending Bloody Shiraz Gin, which saw the team steep cool-climate shiraz grapes into the brand's Rare Dry Gin – it’s rich as Croesus, red-fruit forward with a vague hint of pepper. Or, simply look at their original product, the Rare Dry Gin, which combines Asian botanicals with Mediterranean citrus for a flavour-forward, well-balanced sipper that sings with a sense of place.
Those powerful flavours may truly come down to the fact that Australia is a country of abundance; and the fact that they have access to myriad local, native botanicals to imbue their gins, like lemon myrtle and Tasmanian pepperberry. Or perhaps it’s simply the result of a team who aren’t afraid to experiment, finding the joy in bringing new life to Britain’s favourite spirit.
For more information visit fourpillarsgin.com or @fourpillarsgin
