Drinks worth planning a trip around

There’s an old Irish proverb “What whisky will not cure, there is no cure for.” If that’s the case then not only can Starward cure a few things, they do it deliciously as well.

At the 2022 San Francisco World Spirits Competition they won ‘Most Awarded Distillery of the Year’ after going home with the most amount of gold by one distillery. How much gold? 12 Double Gold and 3 Gold medals, which made them the first Australian distillery to take the top honour since the competition kicked off in 2000.

Now imagine the pressure to back it up in 2023. We imagine it to be similar to how Pearl Jam would have felt after releasing ‘Ten’. So many hits, how do you back it up? Well, they did. Taking home 12 Double Gold, 10 Gold medals and 5 Silver medals. If you’re looking for a great whisky with flavour your tastebuds will yearn for, you need look no further. The hardest park will be deciding which one to go with.

If you like a bit of sweetness in your whisky, we reckon you’d be up for HER Honeycomb, created in collaboration with Melbourne’s iconic HER bar. It brings together Starward’s Two-Fold whisky and pairs it with Local Honey Floral Blend from 4,500 beehives at Pure Peninsula Honey. Save it for dessert, pop it in a cocktail or enjoy as a neat sipper. If you don’t mind some fruitier notes, Nova is for you. They hold another claim for this delicious drop; exclusively matured in Australian red wine barrels making it a world-first for a whisky. Nova has won the hearts of competition judges around the world, and it will win yours too, with notes of red berries, chocolate and soft oak spice.

STARWARD HER HONEYCOMB AU$89

Rum is the new water. At least that’s what the kids are saying these days on the streets (citation unavailable for this claim but trust us, they are), and in the streets of China they’re saying next year is the Year of the Dragon, which it definitely is in the Lunar year.

It makes sense then that Aussie distillers Beenleigh are releasing Dragon Release Rum, an exclusive and limited-edition blend crafted from an exquisite selection of rum that’s been aged in barrels for up to eight years in tribute to the 2024 Year of the Dragon. We’ve had a taste: it’s full of spiced oak and scorched toffee notes, giving way to honey, more oak and lingering florals. Just like a dragon.

Beenleigh is the oldest operating distillery in the country—numero uno (number one) ever since an abandoned steamboat with an epic copper still washed up on the Beenleigh sugarcane property in Queensland. Copper still + sugarcane: what else was there to do, besides make rum? And we’re glad they did.

Feels Botanical are Australians making spirits designed to taste like…Australia.

So, sand, thongs and VB? Nah, think more like hemp, Quandong and Kakadu plum, at least in the case of Feels Bask, one of the the deliciously quaint Eau De Vie gin range, distilled from Australian grapes.

If you like gin but can’t decide on your preferred Aussie flavour, the Eau De Vie Gift Box is the go—a box of four bottles with one of each, meaning you’ll get to try all the Feels. And guess what? All the Feels are grain, gluten and preservative free.

The Feels website also has some ripping cocktail recipes, of which our pick is the Charlie Chaplin

FROM Eau De Vie Gift Box from $134.99
Single bottles from $29.99

Best drank on top of a mountain, learning a new language or paired with foreign foods.

The gang at Los Frontieres are all about handcrafted, super premium booze that travels with you. Their runs are small, like super small, which means every bottle is curated to perfection. And when they’re gone, they’re gone forever.

Right now they’ve got a Tasman Series happening. The Muscat Cask is described as “Frank Sinatra meets Nina Simone in pure liquid form”, while the Apple Brandy is for the experienced palate—”we bottled this fella HOT, Nelly made a song about it.” They’ve even got playlists to match every drop. These boys have thought of everything.

FROM AU$200

They do things differently over at Shelter Brewing, the bustling Busselton-based brewery brewing bad bois big flavours.

‘Root Stout is a limited edish, savoury and smoky containing none other than the humble beetroot—that purple legend of a vegetable which has never, ever belonged in a beer, until now.

“I ordered 50 kilos of beetroot to put in the brew, and when it arrived, the kitchen team got hold of it and prepped it for meals in the restaurant. They complained to the Head Chef for ordering so much beetroot, and I had to find 50 kilos of beets at short notice,” Shelter’s Head Brewer Jason Credaro said.

“Luckily we have great suppliers, so we were able to order some more. The ‘Root Stout is not too heavy and has a great body built on the epic grain bill.”

Get it in ya, either in can format or on tap at the brewery’s epic spot on the water in Australia’s south-west.

FROM AU$21 For a four-pack

A hard-earned thirst needs a big cold…gin.

Alright maybe it isn’t the classic Australiana slogan of choice. And maybe gin isn’t the first Aussie alcohol to come to mind, but we like the way Australian Distilling Co. have taken a travellers approach to booze-making.

The company’s signature range features Bondi, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Fremantle and Sydney Gin—and heaps more—all different, all distilled across the country and all with nods to the locations within the drink itself.

Think of these like travel memories in a bottle, here to remind you of your van trip around Australia or the time you were chilling out at Bondi or walking laneways down south.

FROM AU$89

Beaches, surf, hippies, Byron Baes…and whisky?

It’s probably not the first thing you think of when someone mentions the words Byron Bay, but locally-owned Cape Byron Distillery are the new guys on the block that are making waves when it comes to making delicious whisky in Australia. And they’re killing it.

The Original Single Malt is the colour of a Byron Bay sunset, and offers soft vanilla, creme brulee and biscotti flavours.

There’s also the Chardonnay Cask Single Malt, refined with a deep hue influenced from Australian chardonnay casks — could you get anymore Aussie?

After a dram or six of both (for research purposes), get lost settled on The Original as our favourite, but you’d better try it yourself and let us know.

THE ORIGINAL SINGLE MALT AU$125
CHARDONNAY CASK SINGLE MALT AU$140

The Lager Lager Lager Pilsner sounds like a strange name for a beer, but it’s probably not even in the top five weirdest beer names for the crew at Sailors Grave Brewing (Down She Gose, Squid vs Whale ale).

It is in fact a pilsner, and a bloody delicious one at that. It’s the brand-new work from the Orbost brewery in Victoria’s far-east, who combine clever artwork, an unbelievably-quaint brewery location on the banks of the Murray River, and delicious beers. Down she gose indeed.

FROM AU$50 – 12 pack

If there’s one thing Australians and Mexicans have in common, it’s our love of good booze.

So it was only fitting that a group of entrepreneurs and investors from Melbourne decided that 2022 was the best time to start their own version of an Australian-made tequila. The Australian Agave Project is still very much in its infancy, but the group – which is part of ASX listed company Top Shelf International – have already started cultivating Australia’s only Agave spirit farm on the Whitsundays in Queensland, just between Bowen and Airlie Beach. The growing conditions on the farm actually mirror Mexico’s Jalisco exactly, which is located 20 degrees North. Tequila Sunrise, anyone?

From Instagram sensations to beer connoisseurs, we should’ve guessed that the next move from the funny lads at The Inspired Unemployed would be into brewing.

While they candidly admit they don’t have a life-changing story about discovering the root of all truth about brewing, they do admit to creating a zero carb lager in partnership with Torquay Beverage Company. It’s a refreshing ‘better beer’ that’s jumped on the healthy alcohol bandwagon sweeping the planet. And according to the now seemingly employed larrikins, it’s also the “crispiest beer in the world”.

FROM AU$59 per carton