Ripsnorter: The gin view from Australia - Ginposium 2019

Stuart Gregor is co-founder of Four Pillars Gin, Australia’s No.1 craft spirits business, whose gins are now available in more than 20 markets around the world. Before creating Four Pillars in 2013 Stu was a drinks industry veteran having run leading
marketing firm Liquid Ideas for almost 20 years, written several wine guides, judged wine shows, made wines alongside Cameron Mackenzie (his chief collaborator in Four Pillars) and advised many of the best known drinks, food and travel brands in the world.

He has been President of the Australian Distillers Association since 2014 Four Pillars is a small Australian distillery in the Yarra Valley. It has five different gins, multiple gold medals at international spirits competitions and a brand new distillery operation and tasting bar.

The story starts back in 2013 when the founders embarked on a tour of the US West Coast, from Portland down to San Francisco, identifying distilling techniques and equipment that they admired. What stood out above all was that all the gins we loved on our trip were made in a Carl still. 18 months later, they took delivery of their own custom-built still from Carl of Germany, called her Wilma (after Cameron’s beautiful but explosively tempered late mother). Wilma turned out to be amazing, drawing extraordinary botanical flavour from a combination of rare, native and traditional botanicals.

Wilma delivers an unbelievable purity of spirit (the gin comes out at 93.5% ABV) despite our unique approach of distilling our benchmark Rare Dry Gin with fresh, juicy biodynamic and highly-aromatic oranges. Wilma has now been joined by her larger sister Jude, and by her significantly smaller sister Eileen – both also made by Carl.

From Rare Dry Gin to Barrel Aged Gin to Navy Strength Gin to Orange Marmalade (made with the oranges that make the gin) everything Four Pillars does is designed to elevate the craft of distilling in Australia.