Echuca’s gin distillery gets creative with flavours and products
Ahead of World Gin Day on June 13, meet the couple who came out of retirement to start distilling on the Victoria-NSW border.
WHEN David and Fiona De Vries moved to Echuca in 2012, they had planned to retire.
That intention did not last long.
“We came up and I was bored. I was 55 or something, and very bored,” says David, who had owned a manufacturing business in Melbourne for 25 years.
“We made flavourings for food in Melbourne … and also perfume.
“I needed something along those lines, but not to do that again, so gin was the perfect thing for me to do because there’s lots of gins now in the market place but the key is to get something that tastes good, is well balanced and people enjoy.
“I’ve always liked gin, so that didn’t hurt.”
Finally last year, David and Fiona opened Echuca Distillery, where they make and sell a range of gins. They have a big focus on the local tourism market, and their motto is “drink less, enjoy more”.
David laughs that he worked slightly backwards.
“We went to a wine show in Adelaide, an expo, more so on the machinery and supplies, and they had a still at a particular stand,” he says.
“I looked at it, and I knew that’s what I had to do. We actually bought the still, and we probably did things a little bit differently because we then built the building around the still rather than doing the building and putting the still in.”
David uses a grape spirit as the base for the distillation process, sourced from near Berri, in South Australia (which, like Echuca, is on the Murray River, a theme David was keen to continue). The Italian-made 200L pot still can make 200 bottles per day, David says, so normally they only need to make one batch per week (usually on Saturdays, so visitors and tourists can watch).
The juniper — the botanical that defines a gin — is sourced from Macedonia, but David tries to source as many as possible from within Australia. Some of the natives he has used include lemon myrtle and anise myrtle.
“The biggest thing I was determined to do was not to use any flavouring materials, as such, as I would’ve done in my old days — everything needed to be 100 per cent natural, and so we only use plant-based botanicals, herbs and fruits,” he says. “That was my biggest challenge, to go 100 per cent natural.
At the moment, Echuca Distillery has seven gins available, as well as two infused vodkas (anise, and lemon myrtle). They are 40% alc/vol, except the navy strength which is 57%.
The biggest seller from the distillery “by a mile” is the hibiscus rose gin, which is infused to give it both the aroma and pink hue. The latest addition is a butterfly pea and passionfruit gin.
David says choosing the right tonic to go with a gin is important. They use Double Dutch tonic from Britain, and suggest only a maximum of three parts tonic to one part gin.
When it came to location, Echuca Distillery was built one block back from the Port of Echuca – the town’s main tourist area. The site still had some old sheds standing on it, and David and Fiona recycled the red gum and other Australian hardwoods they found for their bar and tables in the new building.
“We thought it would be a difficult task to (build) in the port because it has a historical overlay,” David says.
“We just worked with them (council) and let them tell us what we could do. We went along those lines and we ended up building a beautiful building sympathetic to the area, not hiding that it is a contemporary building.”
While the multimillion-dollar project to build the distillery was being completed, the still (nicknamed Lavender) was already up and running, so David and Fiona had a pop-up shop in the port area.
The distillery opened last April, meaning it had not quite reached its first birthday before it was forced to shut due to coronavirus-related restrictions. In the early stages of the lockdown, when the frenzy for sanitisers created a shortage, Echuca Distillery started to make sanitiser for the local market.
Echuca Distillery products are available online and at certain outlets, but they have not opened for takeaway of any kind. Instead, they have spent the time reviewing their first year of business for possible improvements, developing their own whiskey, as well as ready-to-drink, or pre-mixed, options with their gins.
“We have got the time to think about how we can do our next year better to go forward. As much as we’d like to open again we’re not in a negative dream of mind, we’re in a positive frame of mind and seeing how we can go forward in a better manner.”