Australian distillers dominated the spirits categories at the 28th Australian Liquor Industry Awards (ALIA) in Sydney.

First held in 1994, the ALIAs is hosted by leading drinks industry publications TheShout, Australian Hotelier, BARS&clubs and National Liquor News.

The expert panel of 50 industry judges voted up Cape Byron Distillery and Four Pillars for major awards that were contested by brewers, winemakers and global spirits brands.

Cape Byron claimed Best New Product for its Cape Byron The Original Australian Single Malt Whisky, while Four Pillars was named Best Liquor Brand.

Archie Rose Distilling Co was runner up for both of these major awards, also claiming the prize for Best Australian Distillery.

Local distillers further claimed four out of a possible seven off-premise awards for spirits, in addition to several other commendations.

Australian Distillers Association CEO Paul McLeay said it was an unprecedented showing for local spirits at the drinks industry’s benchmark awards.

“It was a proud night for our distillers, whose awards stretched across the full gamut of light and dark spirits, liqueurs, RTDs and innovation,” he said.

“This demonstrates the continued market penetration of Australian spirits, which are clearly resonating with trade and consumers alike.

“On behalf of the ADA, I congratulate all the successful distillers.”

Australian spirits honoured at ALIA 2023:

BEST LIGHT SPIRIT

Winner Never Never Triple Juniper Gin

Highly Commended Archie Rose Straight Dry Gin

BEST LUXURY DARK SPIRIT

Winner Archie Rose Single Malt

Highly Commended Lark Classic Cask Single Malt Australian Whisky

BEST LUXURY LIGHT SPIRIT

Winner Four Pillars Rare Dry Gin

Highly Commended Archie Rose Signature Dry Gin, Hickson Road Harbour Strength Gin

BEST LIQUEUR

Winner Aperol

Winner Sheep Dog

Highly Commended Mr Black

BEST DARK RTD/RTS

Winner Starward (New) Old Fashioned

Highly Commended Jack Daniels Double Jack

BEST LIGHT RTD/RTS

Winner -196

Highly Commended Brookvale Union

BEST AUSTRALIAN DISTILLERY

Winner Archie Rose Distilling Co.

Highly Commended Four Pillars

BEST NEW PRODUCT

Winner Cape Byron The Original Australian Single Malt Whisky

Highly Commended Archie Rose Fundamentals

BEST LIQUOR BRAND

Winner Four Pillars

Highly Commended Archie Rose Distilling Co.

BEST ON-PREMISE SPIRIT

Winner 1800 Tequila

Highly Commended Never Never Triple Juniper Gin

Australian spirits producers Four Pillars Gin, Grainshaker Vodka and Curatif Cocktails are celebrating a record-breaking night at the International Wine & Spirits Competition in London.

Victoria’s Four Pillars led the honours, winning the International Gin Producer Trophy for a record third time after its back-to-back wins in 2019 and 2020.

Fellow Victorians Grainshaker Vodka – produced by Top Shelf International in Campbellfield – claimed the Vodka Producer Trophy.

And canned cocktails company Curatif picked up the RTD Producer Trophy for a second time, having won the inaugural gong for this category in 2022.

Australian Distillers Association chief executive Paul McLeay said it was another landmark moment for this exciting industry.

“The Producer Trophies are the most prestigious accolades in the IWSC, which is the world's largest and most influential spirits awards with more than 4,000 entries from distilleries across the globe in 2023,” he said.

“Our spirits manufacturers have once again proven that their products can compete with the very best and triumph on the world stage.

“These results further highlight the export potential for Australian spirits, were they not hampered by the world’s third highest spirits tax, which hit an outrageous $100.05 per litre of pure alcohol on 1 August.”

Four Pillars was awarded 10 medals for its gins in the 2023 Awards, including two gold medals with 98 points for Bloody Underhill Vineyard Shiraz Gin and Single Barrel S36 Gin.

“Back in 2013, we set out with the ambition to make world-class gin, so to win this award three times is simply mind-blowing,” said Four Pillars co-founder and distiller Cameron McKenzie.

“It’s a massive thrill for our team back at home and for the Australian spirits industry overall, and even sweeter that Four Pillars celebrates ten years of making gin this December,” he said.

Meanwhile, Grainshaker Vodka outperformed more than 200 other vodka brands to win the Vodka Producer Trophy, highlighting the quality of its spirits made from Australian wheat, corn and rye.

The IWSC judges declared Grainshaker a leader in the “grain-to-glass” movement, awarding its Wheat Vodka a gold medal with 98 points.

“This is a massive win not just for Grainshaker but the Australian spirits industry,” said Top Shelf CEO Trent Fraser.

“Vodka is one of the most competitive spirit categories, and we’ve shown we can compete on the international stage with the likes of Russia, Poland, France and the USA when tasted blind by the expert judges at IWSC.”

Australian Distillers Association president Holly Klintworth said she is immensely proud of the industry’s achievements at these prestigious awards.

“There are now more than 600 distilleries spread across Australia and they are producing some of the world’s finest spirits,” she said.

“If Australian drinkers ever needed another reason to drink local, this is it.”

“Victoria has proven once again it is the spirits capital of Australia,” said David Irwin, President of Spirits Victoria Association.

“These awards are yet another example of how Victoria is producing world-beating spirits.”

A big thanks to our guest speakers Gordon Chalmers, Rick Prosser and Sam Slaney, and all members who were able to join the webinar on the day.

The recording of the webinar is now available - use the link below to access.

You can also access Gordon's presentation below with some helpful tips.

View the September PD Webinar

Gordon Chalmer's Presentation

Passcode: V@0B#5b?

A reminder, too, that Australian Distillers has a Safety Toolkit on their website, complied by leading industry experts, Beca. This should be compulsory reading for all members. Log into the Members section on the Australian Distillers website to access this vital safety information.

Additional safety resources exist in the member portal and the Safety & Sustainability group have more events and content planned for the year ahead to help members (of all sized businesses) with safety in their distillery.

The Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland is pleased to announce the Royal Queensland Awards' inaugural Distilled Spirits Competition in 2024.

We invite potential judges to express their interest in participating on the 8th and 9th of July 2024. The RNA is looking for judges with official qualifications and/or extensive judging experience at all levels, including Head Judges, Panel Chairs, Judges, and Associate Judges.

The RNA will cover travel, accommodation, and relevant food expenses for the two days of judging at the Brisbane Showgrounds. If you're interested, please click the link below. For any questions, please contact Liam O'Donnell.

JUDGE EOI FORM

Registration for the American Distilling Institute's 2024 International Spirits Competition is open and the American Distilling Institute have provided Australian Distillers members with the following discount code.

When members of the Australian Distillers Association enter their spirits and use the discount code 2024ADA they will save $100/spirit off the non-member rate. And, any spirit entered by February 2, 2024 will automatically save an extra $50/spirit from the early-bird discount.

ADI ISC Benefits include:

In addition, please note that any spirits not yet imported into the US will need to complete a free FDA Prior Notice and a free COLA Waiver application. Lastly, spirits registration closes March 1, 2024.

Members can find all the details about the competition below or can contact Eric Zandona, Competition Director, ADI directly.

COMPETITION DETAILS

You are invited to join the Distillers South Australia annual conference for updates on tourism, sustainability, OH&S and more. This is a must-attend event for all your latest industry updates, networking and to hear from an outstanding line-up of presenters. Program to be released soon.

All Distillers South Australia members receive one complimentary ticket to attend the Conference, however you must register to secure your ticket so get in quick as space is limited. Additional tickets are available for $89 per ticket.

If you are a paid member of Distillers South Australia for FY23/24, please register for Spirit Fest through the link in the invite email or through the Distillers South Australia Members Page

This event is supported by the Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia.

Affinity Labs are leading a gin benchmark study, assessing chemical and aroma/flavour profile data of the world's leading gins benchmarked against Australian and South Australian gins. If you would like to participate in this exciting study, all that is required is 2 x bottles of your gin. Expressions of interest to participate must be received by 15 September, and distillers must contact Affinity Labs direct to express interest to participate at:

Email: customerservice@affinitylabs.com.au

Tel: 8313 0444

Click on the PDF below to read more about this initiative.

GIN BENCHMARKING STUDY

Distillers South Australia is excited to confirm that they are the recipients of two new grants from the South Australian Government. In July the Minister for Trade and Investment, the Hon. Nick Champion announced a $50,000 funding boost to South Australian distillers. Distillers South Australia will use this grant to develop an export strategy for the State's distillers and to showcase SA's premium spirits in an international activity in 2024.

Distillers South Australia has also been awarded a $100,000 Lead-Educate-Assist-Promote (LEAP) Grant from Green Industries South Australia (GISA). The grant will go towards helping members advance resource use efficiency, reduce waste and carbon footprint to proactively drive sustainability for the spirit's sector. For more details refer to media releases below.

Distillers South Australia media releases

The Australian Distillers Association President, Holly Klintworth, recently addressed the Spirits Victoria Association conference with an update on the Association's activities and strategy, covering the following topics...

Excise

Campaign for Fair and Sustainable Tax Reform is our number one issue. I am sure you would have seen extensive media reporting of this recently. Even if you do not pay it now, many in your industry are. I am sure for many of you, it may be in your business plan to scale to the size that you will be paying it.

If it is not something you think about today, you may be paying it in the future because of two things.

Firstly, the $350K remission is not legislated. It can be taken away at any time. We need to maintain the pressure on the Government to continue to provide our industry, along with beer and wine producers, the modest relief to encourage investment.

Secondly, the current rate of $350K is fixed, and excise increases twice per year. Since the $350K remission was introduced, the excise rate has already increased 4 times, resulting in a reduction of capacity to produce under the threshold. In the last 18 months alone, the maximum amount of production you can make under the threshold has been reduced by more than ten percent. With the magic of compound interest, because we are at a much higher rate than beer, the impact on our industry is disproportionate. With every increase -twice per year- your productivity frontier decreases. So, even if you are not paying it now, you may very well be in the near future.

We will continue to campaign for fair and sustainable tax reform. We accept that we pay a sumptuary tax, but sure $100 / LAL is enough. When is enough, enough? Where does it stop?

Handbook

That is why we produced the members handbook to give you the tools you need to engage with your local politicians and media to assist in the campaign. Our powerful advocacy in Canberra is effective, but we all know the adage – all politics is local.

If you have not already, go to our website and download it from the home page.

We need you to be part of the campaign. Write a letter to your MP, using your own words (the handbook can help you get started) and explain to your local MP that the tax policy that was set 40 years ago, when there were only two companies in Australia paying that (Bundaberg and Beenleigh) is out of date.

We now have more than 600 distillers caught up in this out of date and unfair tax. The handbook also has talking points and some creative infographics. As the map showed, two thirds of distilleries, like my own, are in rural and regional areas.

We are domestic manufacturing jobs – something the Government says they want to encourage- and we are tourism jobs. We use Australian products to create our wonderful products and we should not be punished by lazy, out of date policy settings.

Industry Vision

We know the policy settings are more than just tax. We think the Australian Spirits Industry can be like the Australian Wine Industry.

More than 30 years ago the Federal Government worked with the wine industry to develop an industry roadmap that identified a successful pathway for sustainable growth and export development. Australian Spirits Industry can and should do the same.

The key areas we have identified for a framework for growth are:

Parliamentary Inquiry

We are campaigning for a Federal Parliamentary Inquiry into the Australian Spirits Industry. We want to partner with the Government on the development of this framework.

To prepare for this, we will be creating special purpose working groups to ensure we have good representation across the spirits industry to capture the views, ideas and aspirations of the category. These will be member driven and coordinated by us.

Project Groups

These working groups are different to our Policy Project Groups.

These Project Groups are chaired by a Member of the ADA Board and meet on an ad hoc basis and when required. The Project Groups are a reference and guidance point for the broader industry. They are advisory only. Any conclusions made by the project groups will be required to form recommendations that will go to the ADA Board for endorsement or approval.

The Project Groups are driven by the Members who participate and secretariat and organisational assistance is provided by the ADA.

We currently have three Project Groups

We sought expressions of interest from any Member of the ADA who is interested in joining any of the Project Groups. The Technical Standards Project Group is now quite large and will more than likely be breaking into sub groups for their product description process.

Parliamentary Friends of Australian Spirits

We continue our engagement with the Parliamentary Friends of Australian Spirits and we will be having another event with them later this year. It is powerful when our local MPs have an event and engage with our distilleries in their electorate, it is equally important that we engage with them at their “house”. That is why we will continue our annual event of hosting spirits manufacturers and producers in Parliament House, Canberra.

Governance

You can see we are working hard to ensure our engagement with members and stakeholders is meaningful and relevant. To help us do this better, we are conducting a review of our governance arrangements. Next year the Association will celebrate our 20-year anniversary. When our constitution was written 20 years ago, there were only half a dozen members. We now have nearly 500 members and we have active state organisations.

That is why we are currently in the process of reviewing our constitution and our arrangements with the state organisations.

We anticipate having a new constitution later this year, that we will put to members for your consideration. If adopted, it will allow for a more representative and accountable organisation.

We are planning to allow the state organisation, if they choose to partner, to nominate two representatives to the National Board. Where a state organisation does not want to partner, we will elect two delegates from that state.

For any of you that have attended the Annual Conference or attended the AGM on line, this will not be anything new. We have been talking about this framework for more than a year, but we want to make sure we get it right.

State Partnerships

Some state organisations have already partnered with the ADA to allow for smoother membership experience. This model is optional and does not take away from the incredibly critical role the state organisation runs.

Member Portal

We are expanding the services we provide to members. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to update your details on the member portal. This will allow you and all of your staff to access the member benefits and latest information. 

The portal includes:

We are continuing to update the members portal with useful information and services.

National distilling Institute

Another exciting development is the recent launch of the National Distilling Institute.

This will become your one stop shop for all your industry training needs.

At last conference we announced that we would be providing a certificate III and Certificate IV in Distilling. Since the launch, we have varied the program and slightly delayed the launch. After significant feedback from the industry, it has been agreed that the Certificate IV in Artisan Products (Distilling) is a much better fit for purpose for the craft distilling industry.

That is why we are currently developing the modules and training our teachers so you will have the best available and industry relevant training that you will be able to do in your workplace. The Certificate IV will be made available by the end of the year.

We are also developing some short courses, or micro-credentials. The first micro credentials will be focussed around safety. In time, there will be a suite of micro-credentials you will have access to. Some will be free and self-paced, others will have a modest fee, depending on the development costs and costs of delivery.

We will also curate the best in class third party training providers that allow for some control and consistency across the industry.

When these are launched, you will certainly hear more about these exciting programs.

2024 Annual conference

One of the most exciting and important agenda items on the ADA calendar is the Annual Conference. Like this conference, we all know the benefits of making the investment and getting away from your distillery to meet with peers and focus on some professional development.

The 2024 Annual Conference will be held in Brisbane in April next year. We will continue the new practice of having a trade show so you can meet with suppliers and service providers.

This will also have a number of master classes and professional updates. We will have the conference and our formal dinner where we will induct someone to the Hall of Fame who have gone above and beyond in the service to our industry.

We will also be having some distillery tours for those that want to have insights into the way some of our colleagues run their distillery and operations. The 2024 Conference will be our biggest and most informative ever.

Join Now

Finally, I would like to thank all of the members who have been members of the Australian Distillers Association. We are part of an exciting and growing industry. We are only strong when we are united.

If you are not a member, I encourage you to join today.

If you know of any new members in your area, please reach out to them and encourage them to join.

Thank you for allowing me to address your conference and I look forward to saying hello to anyone I have not yet met.