The Four Pillars Story: How Australia Changed Gin

In 2013, Cameron Mackenzie, Stuart Gregor and Matt Jones opened a small distillery in Healesville, Victoria. Their ambition was straightforward: make the best gin they could, using the best ingredients available to them in Australia — a landscape full of native botanicals unlike anything gin-makers in London or Scotland had access to.

Within a decade, Four Pillars had become the most awarded craft gin distillery in Australia and one of the most talked-about gin brands in the world. And the Bloody Shiraz Gin — a product nobody asked for, made by steeping Shiraz grapes in their Rare Dry Gin — became a global cult product.

The Steam Citrus Innovation

The defining technical decision at Four Pillars was to put whole fresh oranges — not dried peel — in the botanical basket during distillation. Steam rising through the still carries volatile aromatic oils from the fresh fruit in a way dried peel simply cannot replicate. The result is a brightness and freshness that has become the Four Pillars signature, most clearly expressed in the Rare Dry Gin.

Native Australian Botanicals

Tasmanian pepperberry provides a long, slow-building spice unlike black pepper. Lemon myrtle adds a citrus lift that is distinctly Australian. Together with juniper, coriander, cardamom and lavender, they create a botanical recipe that could only come from Australia — the profile the world now recognises as Modern Australian gin.

The Bloody Shiraz Effect

Bloody Shiraz began as an experiment: steeping Shiraz grapes in Rare Dry Gin for eight weeks during harvest season. The grapes turn the gin deep purple and add tannin, vinous complexity and a rich winery character. It shouldn't work — and yet it became one of the most written-about gin innovations of the decade.