How a unique Victorian gin is shaking up martini market
Victoria’s Healesville gin distillery Four Pillars has teamed with Cobram Estate to produce the world’s first gin made from olives. Here’s where to taste the unique spirit.
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A classic martini is usually garnished with an olive or two. But what if the gin for that cocktail was actually made from olives?
That was the challenge the team at Healesville’s Four Pillars distillery set themselves and the result, an olive leaf gin, distiller Cam Mackenzie says is “the best gin we’ve made since rare dry”.
“Most of our gins are have been quite citrusy, or quite spicy. This is savoury, really quite unique,” he says.
In collaboration with award-winning Victorian olive oil producer Cobram Estate, along with botanicals including juniper, coriander, rosemary and bay leaf, the gin is made with olive leaves and, uniquely, olive oil.
Mackenzie says while there a few gins around the world that are made with olive leaf, the Four Pillars gin is the first to his knowledge to use olive oil.
“After visiting Cobram Estate during olive harvest in 2019 we realised olive oil could be a brilliant botanical alongside olive leaf. The aroma, flavour and texture of fresh olive is stunning, and we did a year of trials before finalising the recipe for this gin,” Mackenzie says.
“This is a distinctly savoury gin, not like anything we’ve made before.”
Director of innovation at Cobram Estate Tim Smith says the premium extra virgin olive oil Cobram Estate produces is more like a fruit juice than an oil.
“It’s not the first ingredient you think of in a drink, but it’s a very versatile ingredient, with flavours that range from herbaceous to tropical, depending on the olive used. That’s what we’ve tried to do, to make a drink that’s really cool.”
The gin has already won gold at the prestigious 2020 World Spirits Competition in San Francisco in March. Mackenzie suggests serving the gin in a classic G and T garnished with lemon and rosemary, in a Gibson cocktail, which is garnished with cocktail onions, or, of course, as a martini with olives.
Four Pillars Olive Leaf gin will be available in September.