We’ve written a bunch on the wave of Aussie gin that has sprung up over the last couple of years, but we’ve never put them as a group to one of our Blind Tasting panels. So this month, we grabbed a few and headed to Sydney gin bar, The Powder Keg, to see how they held up.
The tasting was identifiably Australian. Of the Four Pillars Rare Dry Gin, Dominique Easter (owner of Sydney’s The Hazy Rose and Downstairs) said: “it smells like Australia!”
A number of these gins use native botanicals, as you might expect, like lemon myrtle, pepperberry and in the case of The West Winds’ The Cutlass, bush tomato.
Looking at the stars awarded it’s clear, too, that from the small number of gins we tasted there are some very big things happening in the homegrown gin category. Not all the producers make the same style of gin, and though juniper is prominent, there are plenty of nuances between the ones we sampled. Not to mention the 50 per cent ABV Cutlass, and the Oak Aged version of the Settlers Rare Dry Gin, which both brought something completely different to the tasting table.
On the day though the clear winner of this tasting was the Four Pillars Rare Dry Gin, with the West Winds, and both Settlers bottlings coming in a close second. The Tamborine Mountain Distillery’s Lilly Pilly Gin intrigued the panel, and the newest gin of the tasting, that from new Sydney distillery Archie Rose, also received a good hearing, coming in at three stars.
Take a look at the results.
(Click the image below to see a larger version)
