For the second consecutive year, Victoria’s Four Pillars Gin has been named International Gin Producer of the Year at the annual International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC) in London.
Now in its 51st year, the ISWC is considered one of the world’s most influential spirits awards, taking more than 4000 entries from distilleries across the globe. This year’s winners were announced in a (very 2020) online event that aired in Australia at 5am today.
Four Pillars was the first Australian distillery to win the International Gin Producer award last year, which makes this back-to-back win even sweeter. (South Australia’s Kangaroo Island Spirits was also a finalist for the award, both this year and last.)
“After the year we’ve had and the exhaustion we have felt, I couldn’t quite believe it when they called out our name,” co-founder and distiller Cameron Mackenzie said in a statement. “I was wearing my full kilt for good luck, same as I did last year in London, and I don’t think I will take it off all day, maybe all week.”
“This is a victory for every single person in the Four Pillars world, but most particularly for everyone at Healesville, who have faced so much uncertainty and difficulty this year but have never stopped putting in the hard yards.”
Mackenzie, Stuart Gregor and Matt Jones founded Four Pillars – which is based in the Yarra Valley town of Healesville – in 2013. This year they set up shop in Sydney, opening what our writer called a “Disneyland of gin”.
In seven years, Four Pillars has made a name for its cult Bloody Shiraz Gin and Rare Dry Gin, both of which picked up gold medals at the competition. It now makes around 600,000 bottles of gin each year.
