Four Pillars Healesville unveils $7 million distillery expansion

Gin lovers are in for a treat, with Healesville’s Four Pillars unveiling its impressive new home. Take a look inside.

It’s been voted the world’s best gin, and now there’s even more space to enjoy it, with Four Pillars unveiling a $7 million expansion of its Healesville home.

Aiming to become the world’s best gin distillery destination, the upgrade, dubbed Healesville 2.0, includes an expanded distillery, gin garden and hospitality experience, right next to the original venue on Lilydale Rd, Healesville.

It’s a huge boost for tourism in the Yarra Ranges as the region recovers from Covid, with up to 200,000 visitors expected to visit the distillery every year.

Four Pillars gin, which began in 2013, has become a global hit, dubbed the ‘world’s best’ in 2019.

Four Pillars Gin has unveiled its expanded Healesville home. Picture: Anson Smart.

The design of the new additional 1000sq m space has nearly tripled the capacity for visitors at Four Pillars and includes an indoor/outdoor gin garden, multiple event and function areas, a crafted copper bar and shop.

It will be able to cater for about 300 guests at a time with a range of table, bench, booth and bar-stool seating in Beth’s Bar and Jude’s Gin Garden.

Four Pillars will now be capable of producing more than one million bottles of gin a year and hosting 150-200,000 visitors annually, with up to 30 new full-time local jobs created, bringing the total number of team members to 150.

Gin will be ‘piped’ directly into the main bar through featured copper pipes to reduce glass waste. Picture: Anson Smart.

Co-founder and distiller, Cameron Mackenzie, said the new space would allow more gin lovers to enjoy the venue.

“For the last few years we have had queues at the door (especially on weekends) and we have had to knock back so many bookings due to space limitations,” he said.

“We’d much rather have everyone inside enjoying a G & T.

Healesville 2.0 will offer an expanded range of bookable experiences including signature gin masterclasses. Picture: Anson Smart.

“So the opportunity to build a bigger bar and deck area has been brilliant.

“The original space will remain the same and focus more on tastings, distillation and botanicals, while the new space showcases cocktails, tasty snacks and a beautiful deck area.”

Four Pillars recently announced it was Australia’s first carbon neutral gin business, with used materials including recycled and upcycled concrete and bricks, pineapple ‘leather’ upholstery and even building waste used during the construction of the new space.

Details: fourpillarsgin.com