It could be a result of the long lunch from which the media man- turned-spirits entrepreneur has just emerged with an old mate to mark his 50th birthday. But as we settle in with a couple of gin and tonics a more likely explanation emerges. “It’s impossible to be in this business if you don’t have a love of bars and people and fun,” Gregor tells me.

“Next week I’m going to London, Cardiff, Stockholm, Oslo and Paris. I’ll go to all these amazing bars and all people want to do is get on the drink with you and have the best time ever.

“I love it, although it breaks me the next day. My job would be brilliant if you were 30 and single but then the business wouldn’t be what it is, because we wouldn’t have made all the f**king mistakes we have. But gee it’s a good job,” he grins. ‘The business’ is craft gin distilling. More specifically it is the business known as Four Pillars gin, the Australian success story that has stormed the world and shows no signs of abating after co-founder Gregor and his partners sold a 50 per cent share to global drinks giant Lion (formerly Lion Nathan) in a deal thought to be the biggest in the Australian spirits industry since Diageo acquired Bundaberg Rum.

Four Pillars is on target to produce more than one million bottles of gin a year by 2020, all from its home site in the small town of Healesville in country Victoria. That state has been the sole operational presence for Four Pillars since it was founded six years ago — until now.

The Wentworth Courier can reveal Four Pillars plans to open a venue in Surry Hills next year _ subject to approvals - in Crown St’s historic Bussell Bros building.

“It’s adjacent to one of our favourite pubs, The Dolphin, across the road from one of our favourite bars, Bartolo, and diagonally opposite our favourite ricotta pancakes at Bills. We already feel right at home,” says Gregor.

With a fit-out by Amber Road design, a bar (pending licenses), micro-distillery and shop — spruiking all the merchandise befitting a cult craft spirits brand, such as T-shirts, books, and even a top flight gin marmalade and salami — represents a formal move into Sydney where Gregor and his family are based.

It is the next stage in a meteoric rise for an idea conceived by two mates; one a former Olympian, the other who refers to himself as ‘the drinker’. The seed for what has become the phenomenal success that is Four Pillars was planted decades ago. Gregor, who was born north of the bridge but spent most of his teenage years in Sydney’s east, moving between his school, Sydney Grammar, and his best friend’s home in Watsons Bay.

He deferred a university offer to study arts/law to pursue a career in journalism after landing a job as a cadet reporter at News Limited, drawn to the idea because of his innate curiosity.

He never did study law and only remained a reporter for four years, travelling instead to France and England to indulge a great passion: food and wine. He moved abroad to Bordeaux and Burgundy, visiting myriad wineries and various courses before concluding that wine was his true love.

“I was on a bus on the way back from Paris to London when I sat next to a Kiwi who said his son had gone to this university in Adelaide where you could study wine making, marketing and business. That one bus trip changed my life.”

It was while studying at the university’s Barossa campus in 1994 that he met his future wife, Sally Lewis. “Weirdly Sal was also a journalist, but she’s worked for Vogue, The Good Food Guide and Gourmet Traveller, so she was much fancier than me obviously, much more interesting and successful,” Gregor quips.

The couple had two children – Audrey (now 15) and George (13) – after returning to live in Centennial Park and later Randwick, but not before moving to Melbourne for a stint in 1996 where Gregor had been offered the role of PR manager for the Mildara Blass wine group. Here he was paired with his aforementioned Olympian.

“In 1999 this bloke walks into my office and says he’s been sent to work for me for the next 12 months from one of the wineries,” says Gregor. Cameron McKenzie had competed for Australia in the 400-metre relay at the Atlanta Olympic Games and had earned a Foster’s Olympic scholarship. The pair hit it off immediately. Cameron needed an office job so he could still train. “My one job was to get him into Sydney 2000. He missed by one spot,” Gregor chuckles.

Little did Gregor know the pair would go on to strike their own gold. An MBA at Melbourne Business School gave Gregor the confidence to found his own communications agency in 2000 with business partner and fellow MBA alumnus Angie Bradbury.

Called Liquid Ideas, it became one of the leading consumer lifestyle communications and events agencies for premium Australian and international wine, spirits and beer brands.

When he wasn’t working, Gregor and McKenzie were busy making their own wine in Victoria’s Yarra Valley. “Whilst it’s always fun giving people advice it’s more fun to create stuff of your own,” he says. Gregor continued to run Liquid Ideas while McKenzie worked with various wine brands but the wine-making was beginning to dominate. In 2012 they decided to get serious, but not about wine.

“We drank gin, a lot of gin and tonics, and we loved it. West Winds was pretty much the only Australian gin, Melbourne Gin Company hadn’t started yet, so we thought, ‘Why don’t we make gin?’”

That was in 2013. After bringing in a third co-founder, strategist and brand director Matt Jones whom they refer to as ‘the thinker’, they set up in a mate’s winery in nearby Healesville, producing their first single Rare Dry Gin that December.

Today Four Pillars bottles four core gins and various experimental products (often riffing on the grape) from its own humming distillery and function space; is available in 20 international markets and employs around 70 people in Australia and abroad.

Indeed, Australia is fast becoming the epicentre of the world’s boutique gins, with more than 100 gin distilleries crafting unique products that blend indigenous botanicals such as Tasmanian pepper berry, native finger limes and river mint.

Locally, gin consumption has shot up 17 per cent in the last year alone, with Australian gins growing rapidly in popularity.

It is easy to forget however that just five years ago there were fewer than 10 local gin distilleries. Four Pillars was not following the trend, they helped create it.

“In many respects I think we’ve played a huge part in the gin thing taking off. Hindsight’s amazing but I think we were lucky enough to combine timing and the world’s best gin. “The world is not screaming out for Australian gin, they have their Tanqueray and their Bombay Sapphire and their Hendricks. They only need an Australian gin if it’s really f**king great,” says Gregor.

Clearly the market agrees. When Lion bought into Four Pillars in March it was the first spirit to be added to its impressive portfolio — an approach Gregor says he was “thrilled” by.

The investment means the craft distillers can expand operations in Healesville and Sydney.

“It’s been nothing but good news, Lion are helping with our distribution across Australia and we’ve also met with a few of their international players.”

Among the wins, Gregor admits there have been several significant blunders along the way. “We’ve made millions of mistakes,” he says enthusiastically, most significantly agreeing to rapid international expansion before they were ready. “We were so naïve, so excited at the idea that someone in Africa or England wanted to import our gins. “Even though I should have been a smart enough businessman to know [better], I wasn’t, and I’ve had to sack every one of our importers in every market in the world.”’ But with mistakes comes knowledge and the subsequent success of Four Pillars in 2019 is almost more than Gregor could have wished for.

“Right now there’s too much travel, I go two, three weeks at a time. My kids are teenagers and weirdly they want me at home, and I want to be there.

“Ideally I’d like to cut back a bit but it’s about finding the right person. Gregor, as well as being the brand’s trade director is a popular wine judge regularly in demand as an emcee, speaker and magazine columnist and the Australian Distillers Association president since 2014. He is quick to acknowledge the support of wife Sal, herself a busy businesswoman; and vocal about the fact that as much as he loves the job, the camaraderie, the good times, there’s something deeper at play.

A generous donor and philanthropist, for 20 years Gregor — who was spotted spending big at this year’s Gold Dinner — has emceed the Starlight Foundation’s annual fundraising dinner, an event now held in every Australian state.

He has only recently stepped down as director of food rescue charity OzHarvest.

“Without wanting to sound like I’m someone who’s far more interesting and decent than I am, I don’t know what the point is if you can’t use whatever remotely interesting skills you have for good,” he says.

“I’m lucky,” he insists. “I’ve made better money than I would ever have expected, I have beautiful children, a nice wife, a beautiful house and a job that I love.

“And if you can’t turn that into something that does more good things for other people, then what’s the point?”