North of Eden gin produced by couple at Stony Creek Farm Distillery

This couple left their corporate careers to start making gin on a farm — then fires, floods and a virus struck. This is how they tackled the challenges thrown at them.

Gavin Hughes and Karen Touchie at their Stony Creek farm distillery in NSW, where they make North of Eden Gin. Picture: Jonathan Ng

MAKING gin from their farm shed distillery, looking out across their property to the Bega Valley, Karen Touchie and Gavin Hughes seem to have made an idyllic life choice.

When Gavin needs botanicals, he merely walks a few paces to their citrus orchard or herb garden and picks fingerlimes, kurrajong seeds or bay leaves.

Or Karen may go beach walking at nearby Mystery Bay to forage kelp, one of their more unusual botanicals.

“We’ve got 12 acres (5ha) here and so we want to grow as many botanicals on the farm as we can and forage locally as well,” Karen says.

“We want our gins to reflect the place we live in, this beautiful region.”

As idyllic as the scene appears, it has not been an easy year for the couple — who both quit secure corporate jobs to take a “tree change” in 2017 — and who were due to open their cellar door in January last year. “We were meant to open then but the day before New Year’s Eve (2019), the bushfires started in this region and ran for 65 days,” Gavin says.

“We were lucky the property wasn’t burnt, but we were in this tiny pocket that kept getting smaller and smaller. In late February, we were still watching the Elvis water bomber put out fires all around us.

“Then after the fires, we got hit by three east coast lows in four weeks and our driveway flooded and was washed away.”

Stony Creek Farm Distillery opened for two weeks in March last year before closing again until December because of COVID-19 restrictions, their cellar door too small to be economic to open to four people.

“We have really struggled because we’ve been in a constant mode of establishing the business,” Karen says.

“We are now in our third

re-establishment in 12 months and it does take a toll. But now we’re open, we’re looking forward to introducing people to the world of distillation and gin.”

And the couple have gone to every effort to create a world of true craft gin, branded North of Eden.

Aside from sourcing their botanicals — which in future will include sloe berries, junipers from a Monaro farm and even possibly oyster shells — from the farm or foraging the couple have sourced three handmade copper stills from Portugal.

The stills (two 100L and one 10L) take up to 16 hours to make about 400 bottles in one distillation, or about 5000 bottles annually in three different styles, with plans for seasonal gins in coming months. It’s sold in bottle shops from Mallacoota to Bermagui, Canberra and Melbourne, and now in their finally-open cellar door.

Gavin, the master distiller, makes a single-shot distillation — opting not to blend separately through the process like many other distillers.

The North of Eden gin is direct fired over a flame. The end product is a London dry-style gin, because the only element added is water — and not essences, syrups or flavouring.

“It’s much easier to distil botanicals separately and then blend, but we have opted to make it in one go from scratch,” Gavin says.

“We chose London-style because it’s the type of gin we enjoy.”

Adds Karen: “There’s not a right way or a wrong way, but this is the very traditional, old-school style.

“It’s about putting the craftsmanship back in to gin.

Gavin Hughes has finally seen the launch of this new business expansion which includes a gin school and cellar door. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“Living here, there’s inspiration all around us, with potential to make fig leaf gin from our fig trees or oyster-shell gin. Given we’re on the oyster coast, it’s just a matter of finding time to create.”

The couple run a gin school every Saturday for groups up to 12 (smaller family groups in COVID-restrictions), teaching the art of distillation.

Given the volatility of distillation, it is possible Gavin is the best placed in Australia to teach the skill.

An industrial chemist, from 1996 to 2011 he was the chief distiller and later chief executive for CSR sugar mills. He was then Dalby Biorefinery chief executive, in charge of making ethanol, later in charge of the Manildra Group’s ethanol distillation and finally Biofuels Association of Australia chief executive.

Karen, who grew up in Scotland and moved to Australia in 1996, has a law background. Her work has included the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and working for the Queensland and Victorian governments, most recently director of the climate change policy branch.

Yet despite such high-profile roles, the couple say their quality of life and time together suffered. So on the spur of the moment in 2017, they resigned and opted for a simpler life on the farm, making gin.

Despite a tough start for Stony Creek Farm Distillery, Karen and Gavin have been bolstered by international awards for their three gins, beating more than 800 competitors to take a silver medal for The Classic (which has notes of lemon, grapefruit and lime) and a bronze for The Connoisseur (which includes kelp and citrus) at the 2019 International Wine and Spirit Competition in London.

And they have been given the honour of creating a commissioning gin for the Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Supply, which will be based in Eden later in the year.

They also made hand sanitiser at cost for local health authorities in the first months of COVID-19.

The couple say the silver lining has been the joy of creation and the support of the local community.

This has included the #spendwiththem campaign during the bushfires, without which “we would have struggled to keep the business afloat”, yet also donating 10 per cent of money to local bushfire relief efforts.

“I love feeling part of the community,” Karen says. “The support from all over Australia has been incredible.

“We would like to use our brand to help promote the region and do our bit to help the community get back on its feet again.”

● northofeden.com.au/

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