Former porn baron’s gin firm goes under owing $1.2m

A Brisbane gin distillery run by a former internet porn baron has collapsed owing creditors more than $1.3m after a court battle with its landlord over rent arrears.

A Brisbane gin distillery run by a former internet porn baron has collapsed owing creditors more than $1.3m.

Daniel Moore, of BCR Advisory, has been appointed liquidator of West End-based Brisbane Distillery Company following a recent court case that saw the business evicted from its premises over unpaid rent.

Brisbane Distillery was founded in 2019 by director and former army officer Jon Atherton, who made a fortune 25 years ago selling membership to online porn websites.

The company claimed to be the city’s first gin distillery with a mission “to produce quality local spirits with Australian botanicals.”

According to documents lodged with ASIC by Mr Moore, the company owes the Australian Taxation Office more than $420,000 and various amounts to his landlord and suppliers. Comment has been sought from Mr Atherton.

The Supreme Court in May ordered that the company vacate its West End premises after he fell behind in the rent. The landlord claimed in court documents that Mr Atherton had “forcibly regained possession of the property” after the locks were changed.

Jon Atherton

Mr Atherton outside of court denied breaking into the building and he was not charged with any criminal wrongdoing.

He said the past few years had been a “ challenging year” for the business due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a flooding event that resulted in a loss of stock and equipment.

In April the company put its double decker event bus on the market after announcing “a strategic decision to focus our efforts on distribution and growing other parts of our business. The bus includes a fully equipped bar and upstairs seating for 30 guests.

After graduating from Royal Military College, and working in the Australian Army for seven years, Mr Atherton moved into websoftware development. According to his Linkedin profile, since 2008 he has been developing iOS and Android apps.

Mr Atherton is best known as having owned Spotwire Pty Ltd in the 1990s, which sold lucrative memberships to online porn websites. A Brisbane Supreme Court hearing in 2003 heard that Spotwire had 92,983 customers it was billing at $US21 each.

He also launched a number of applications, including an iPhone app “called Wobble” which let people wobble a person’s body parts inan image.

Mr Atherton said in 2012 that many teenagers bought Wobble solely to wobble the breasts of women in their iPhone camera roll.

In April the company put its double decker event bus on the market

The collapse of Brisbane Distillery comes amid increasingly tough times for the alcoholic beverages sector. Last month, online spirits marketplace Gintonica – which raised almost $250,000 last June in a crowd-funding campaign – was placed in administration. In May, ASX-listed wholesale beverage marketplace Kaddy also appointed administrators with its shares tanking. In February, one of the nation’s largest craft brewers, Tribe Breweries, fell into administration – later being saved through a deed of company arrangement. IBISWorld analyst Matthew Reeves says spirits manufacturing has been growing based on demand for premium products, but competition from overseas producers remains strong. “The premiumisation of consumer tastes and stronger demand for ready-to-serve cocktail products have benefited the industry over the past five years,’’ he says. The spirits sector in Australia is forecast to grow at 2.9 per cent per year, however the growth in new business starts will drop from a robust 13.2 per cent year on year increase over the past five years to 3.3 per cent.

--additional reporting by Cameron England