Sydney Gin Festival pours into Rosehill Gardens on November 15-16, 2024

If gin is your tonic, head to Sydney’s west where a festival offering more than 200 boutique varieties will be held for the first time.

The Rosehill Gardens hosts the Sydney Gin Festival for the first time.

Gin is set to flow freely at Rosehill Gardens next month, as more than 55 of Australia’s most creative distillers offer 220 boutique varieties to sip and sample.

Ester Spirits, Prohibition Liquor Co and Nosferatu will be among the distillers at the Sydney Gin Festival, which the Australian Gin Distillers’ Association will host on November 15 and 16.

Newcomers including Bimbadgen Estate Distillery and Threefold are also set to join the event – a key stop on the national Gin Festival roadshow.

For those who take their spirits seriously, International Spirits Academy experts will run a masterclass to share insider tips, exclusive tastings and practical cocktail crafting tips.

There are also special sessions from Papa Salt, Hickson House at The Rocks and Puss & Mew Distillery in Victoria, where artists are on hand for a three-hour session that includes tasting gourmet treats to complement a host of gin profiles.

Gins with a splash of citrus.

Australian Gin Distillers’ Association chief executive Judith Kennedy said our love affair with gin accelerated six years ago.

That’s partly because of the rise in the popularity of cocktails, especially martinis, which have gin as a main component.

The popularity of cocktails has fuelled gin’s status.

The push particularly took off in bars across England (where the late Queen Elizabeth II was known for having a penchant for the spirit), and spread around the globe.

It’s also a relatively easy beverage to serve guests at dinner parties and have a tipple before going out to dinner.

“It’s so easy to put out a bottle of gin or it’s so easy to put out a little bottle of rum or vodka and make some cocktails … so we’re glad that is popular,’’ Kennedy said.

She said she believed the association, which she formed in 2017, assisted gin’s growth in Australia because of the nine or 10 festivals it holds each year.

Australian Gin Distillers' Association chief executive Judith Kennedy.

Kennedy enlisted the expertise of “stupendous” Tasmanian whiskey and gin distiller Bill Lark to form the Australian Gin Awards the same year the association was established.

He was chairman until 2020.

“Our festivals have become very, very popular in that we’ll have 56 distillers selling their gin to hopefully around 3000 people, and we do that nine times a year, so we’re covering a lot of acreage, a lot of gin,’’ she said.

“They’re educating the public at the same time.’’

The Australia Medal recipient says the nation is also pulling its weight in the exploding gin market.

There were 50 distillers in Australia six years ago. There are now 460 “so the growth has been enormous in that time’’.

“There’s, of course, a large import of gin but Australia makes 15 per cent of gin that’s consumed in Australia, which is quite a large percentage for a small country,’’ she said.

The gin profiles are mind-boggling with flavours such as watermelon and coconut gin liqueur fused with botanicals.

The Sydney Gin Festival is normally held at Royal Randwick Racecourse or Paddington, but this year’s venue at Rosehill lends an opportunity to study a new market.

While excited about the Rosehill event, Kennedy will instead be in the UK after the inaugural Sydney Spirits Festival in May garnered a nomination in the best event category of the Spirits Business Awards in London on November 14.

She hopes the Rosehill event will emulate the success of the May festival, held at the Sydney Cove Passenger Terminal.

Three-hour tastings sessions start from $50. Book tickets here.