Gin producers from SA such as Applewood, Adelaide Hills Distillery and Never Never are creating a unique Australian spirit
FROM green ants to macadamias and pepper berries, local gin producers are producing a uniquely Australian flavour, writes Tony Love.
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THERE’S lime in here. Coriander spice, too. Clove and cinnamon, black pepper, nutmeg and star anise.
I can taste a flower, like violets. And something like pine tree resin.
I could imagine all these elements in a wildly inventive dish from a kitchen like Jock Zonfrillo’s Orana. Or Paul Baker’s Botanic Gardens Restaurant.
But it’s nothing like that at all. I’m sipping a glass of Adelaide Hills Distillery 78 Degrees Gin, a small batch spirit made in Nairne by craft distiller Sacha La Forgia, the very same gin that was named the world’s best at the American Distilling Institute Awards a year ago.
Since then Sacha has gone one step further and combined ingredients from indigenous food purveyor Something Wild into a spirit that is one of the most startling you could ever imagine tasting.
Those ingredients include Australian green ants, a native juniper called boobialla, finger limes, strawberry gum, lemon myrtle and pepper berry. Australian Green Ant Gin has become an instant hit in Adelaide’s bars, its crazy acidity tang forever memorable.
You can try it as part of a tasting paddle accompanied by matching garnishes at one of Adelaide’s top dens, the Howling Owl — and right there you’ll discover that gin has become the thing. The spirit of South Australia.
LOCAL SPIRIT
They serve more than 130 different gins at the Howling Owl in the CBD East End’s Vaughan Place, 38 or just under 30 per cent of them are made right here in South Australia, reflecting a worldwide craze for the white spirit, which appears to be following booming global artisan food and drinks trends.
And Adelaide’s emerging small bar landscape has been instrumental in encouraging the surge in local spirit production – with gin being the leader of the pack.
In the CBD’s central inner-west, Hains & Co also has made a name for itself as a gin fancier’s bolthole, and so too nearby Udaberri, while one distiller, Prohibition Liquor Co has set up its own town-based cellar door.
The focus is not just a CBD thrill, with much-adored McLaren Vale restaurant The Salopian Inn housing a specialist gin bar that stocks 230 different international and Australian gins, 28 of them South Australian.
Also in the regions, cellar doors for Settlers Gin in McLaren Vale, Applewood and Ambleside in the Adelaide Hills, with Sacha La Forgia’s AHD soon to come on line, Barossa Distilling Company’s bar in Nuriootpa and Kangaroo Island Spirits at Cygnet River on the island are among the
hot spots where local expressions of gin are showcased in all their glory.
The connections across South Australia are particularly strong, fitting perfectly with our huge statewide wine industry as well as our pioneering stance with regional, local, and especially Australian native produce.
GOING NATIVE
“Gin has captivated a lot of Australian consumers purely because of its botanical nature,” Adelaide Hills winemaker and Applewood distiller Brendan Carter says.
“And that has coincided at exactly the same time as the growing interest in Australian indigenous ingredients,” Brendan says.
Like many SA distillers, he and wife Laura Carter craft their core gin starting with the spirit’s vital ingredient, juniper, and then scores of individual botanicals, including many aromatic native leaves, seeds, nuts and berries like peppermint gum leaf, saltbush, wild thyme, pepperberry, wattleseed, anise myrtle, macadamia, finger lime and desert lime. (Our cover picture this week shows a selection.)
“We are still feeling our way with the flavours,” Applewood’s Brendan says.
But already an ingredient list like this can only come from Australia, and only produce an Australian gin.
“There is now a broader category of Australian gins – that’s what we are.
“It’s a great thing for us and our country and locally,” he says.
JUST ONE KIS
And it doesn’t get more local than the range of gins created by pioneers of the Australian movement, Jon and Sarah Lark at Kangaroo Island Spirits (KIS). When they arrived on the island in early 2002, they recognised there was an emerging food and wine culture connecting to a tourism industry.
They already had the desire to begin distilling, and nobody on the island was making spirits.
“In fact no one was doing it in South Australia, let alone on Kangaroo Island,” Jon Lark says.
When KIS began Sarah and Jon were focused on the traditional London Dry style of gin – white spirit with the bold flavours of common juniper exported from Europe.
But they also came across a juniper-like berry on the island, boobialla, which they included in their popular KIS Wild Gin. It prompted them to begin using more wild botanical ingredients like coastal daisy bush, samphire, wild rosemary and lemon myrtle in other designs.
In their O’Gin the classic ingredients of common juniper, coriander and angelica root play their part but the key to its unique character was to make something more savoury that came from the use of a Kangaroo Island coastal daisy (Olearia axillaries) that also was known locally as wild rosemary. With other peppers, pines and some orange, a new style was born.
Then there’s KIS’s Old Tom Gin, inspired by 200-year-old English spirits with the same name that used licorice root as a main flavouring agent.
“We wanted to salute that with Australian versions grown here on the island,” Jon says.
Using lemon and aniseed myrtles, they first created their Old Tom to serve at Tasting Australia’s Origins Dinner in 2014, remembered by many as the hit of the festival.
It went on to be recognised as a champion gin in several international competitions.
ACE OF BASE
The Larks are one of many SA artisan distillers adding such personal flavour touches to their gins by starting out with an extraordinary local resource of base white spirit made by Nuriootpa based Tarac Technologies.
Tarac processes much of the state’s winemaking residuals like stems, skins and seeds into a range of grape alcohols that suit spirit making and fortified wine as well as for industrial purposes.
Tarac’s neutral grape alcohol is favoured by many of our best gin producers, who then pass the spirit through their own stills with the addition and infusion of their individual botanical recipes.
“Tarac really cares about its gin producers,” Brendan Carter says. The company plays a critical part in managing the wine industry’s waste, which speaks to his and wife Laura’s sustainability philosophy. Their grape-based products come at a price that none of the smaller producers could ever match if they were doing that initial distillation process themselves, he says.
“Our proximity to that source of high quality spirit from Tarac in one of the main reasons that gin has become so important in South Australia,” he says.
“Of course – it’s grape spirit in SA. What else would we use.”
JUNIPER POWER
On the flip side, there is another white spirit that can come into play here, and that’s grain spirit, which is employed by Never Never Distilling Co for its signature Triple Juniper Gin. Within a year of its first release the Triple Juniper had been listed in the 10 top trending gins in the world by beverage industry analyst Drinks International, which based its results on polling 100 leading bars around the world.
Only just this month, Never Never, based at Royal Park but planning to move to McLaren Vale in the next 12 months, also was judged highly with a gold medal score at the prestigious San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
The international recognition is understandable for a gin with such turbocharged juniper characters, the traditional style used in bars for classic cocktails.
Grain spirit, in this case sourced from the Manildra company and distilled at Bomaderry on NSW’s south coast, supports that robust style, while grape spirit is suited to more floral and fruit driven flavours in the botanical gins mostly created in South Australia.
“There has been a real eagerness to support the gin industry in Australia,” Never Never’s Sean Baxter says. “It’s been amazing not just in SA but across the country that people are beginning to purchase locally made gins now, but there needs to be a wide range of differently styled gins.
“There wasn’t a juniper forward style in Australia, and we wanted to fill that void,” Sean says.
WORLD OF FLAVOUR
It’s this thirst for thrilling aromas and flavours, both by distillers and consumers, that has generated such a buzz in our bars, says Howling Owl owner Mick Krieg.
From a consumer’s viewpoint, he says, there are so many variations in the botanicals and ingredients now being employed that you can end up with quite dramatic taste profiles, which is exciting for a generation brought up on a wide range of food, wine, beer and spirits flavours and styles.
“While it’s not unique to South Australia, here there’s a greater awareness than ever of local produce and indigenous ingredients as well,” Mick says.
There’s no getting away from the spectrum of flavours Mick and Rachel Krieg offer in their gin tasting boards which come with hand-picked garnishes.
Alongside the Green Ant Gin you actually get a taste of the green ants and their explosive citrus hit. Then there’s the Never Never Triple Juniper Gin and a sprig of thyme with lemon. Next there’s Lyrebird Australiana Gin, with its strawberry gum, lemon myrtle, yellow wattleflower and native thyme ingredients on top of its junipers, citrusy in profile and garnished with strawberries and lemon myrtle.
And finally the lighter fragrant and fruity Barossa Generations Gin with a side of grapefruit and ginger.
This is no easy-over gin and tonic, though the bar does many mean versions depending on your gin choice.
This is a deep dive into a world of amazing flavours. And a celebration of the true spirit of South Australia.
OUR TOP GIN DENS
Adelaide
The Howling Owl
East End bar with most locals among more than 130 gins; tasting boards available. Open Mon-Sat, Sun functions.
Vaughan Place Adelaide,
8227 1611
Hains & Co
Maritime-vibe bar in central CBD with top gin focus. Open 4pm-late, seven days.
23 Gilbert Place, city,
8410 7088
Udaberri
Popular bar in the busy Leigh St precinct with well credentialed gin smarts.
Open Mon-Fri, 4pm-late, and from 6pm Sat-Sun.
11-13 Leigh St, Adelaide, 8410 5733
Prohibition Liquor Co
Distillery door bar covering a wide selection of local, domestic and international labels, cocktails and flights at $24-$25. Try their own Tasting Australia gold medal gin. Open 11.30am-10pm Thur-Sat, and to 7pm Sunday.
22 Gilbert St, Adelaide, 8155 6007
Adelaide Hills
Ambleside Distillery
Distillery tasting room with a sampling platter of its three signature gins (15ml shots each for $15) including its recent Tasting Australia Spirit Awards gold medal winner. Also Ambleside G+Ts and cocktails. Open Fri-Sun.
Cnr Ambleside & Mt Barker Rd, Hahndorf, 0408 834 010
Applewood Distillery
Small country style cellar door; bookings preferred. Tasting flights are $20 for gin, also botanical drinks and Unico Zelo wines. Open seven days, 11am-4pm.
24 Victoria St, Gumeracha; 8389 1250
Glen Ewin/ Fig Gin
Hills regional cellar door for smaller wineries, and you can taste its own Fig Gin, as well as build your own style with other flavours. Open Thu-Sun, 9am-5pm.
Lower Hermitage Road, Houghton, 8380 5657
Barossa Valley
Barossa Distilling Co
The Stillery tasting room and craft spirit bar in the historic Penfolds Distillery (though not owned by Penfolds) offers many gins and cocktails including their own. Open 11am-5pm Mon-Thu, to 8pm Fri, 11am-6pm Sat, 12pm-5pm Sun; Provenance Barossa Building,
18-28 Tanunda Road, Nuriootpa; 0418 996 310
The Farm Eatery
Inside Maggie Beer’s Farm restaurant and cellar door, you can taste Durand Distillery’s two gins The Matriarch and The Good Wife. Also check out thefarmeatery.com for dates for all-day tutored “Gin School”. Open 12pm-3pm Mon-Fri, and 11am-3pm, Sat-Sun.
Pheasant Farm Road, Nuriootpa, 8562 1902
Riverland
Twenty Third Street Distillery
Modern madeover cellar door at the landmark Renmark distillery where you can do tours ($15) and tastings ($15) or both ($25). Three tasting flights of gins, brandies or a combo. Open seven days
10am-4pm.
Cnr Renmark Ave & Twenty Third St, Renmark, 8586 8500
McLaren Vale
Salopian Inn
Outstanding restaurant with a bar boasting 230 different gins from around the globe, including 28 SA versions. You won’t get a better food menu to go with your favourite gin anywhere. Open seven days for lunch, dinner
Thu-Sat.
Cnr Main Rd and McMurtrie Rd, McLaren Vale, 8323 8769
Settlers Artisan Spirits
Set in the cellar door of Maximus Wines, with a range of tastings ($5 each) of eight variations with garnish and tonic. Other spirits, liqueurs and cocktails available, as well as gin and cheese pairings. Open 11am-5pm Fri-Mon
197 Foggo Rd, McLaren Vale, 8323 8777
Kangaroo Island
KIS (Kangaroo Island Spirits)
A cottage cellar door midway between Kingscote and the airport. Taste a wide range of gins. including the Tasting Australia gold medal KIS Whisky Barrel Gin plus other KIS spirits, cocktails and liqueurs. Open 11am-5.30 Mon, Wed-Sun, and Tuesdays during SA school holidays.
856 Playford Hwy,
Cygnet River, 8553 9211
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