Four Pillars Gin

The Free Bacchus Story

The oranges in Four Pillars gin are grown for Four Pillars. Not bought on the open market, not sourced by a broker — grown specifically for the distillery, which is the sort of detail that turns a sourcing claim into something a person could actually go and check.

Established in 2013 in the Yarra Valley by Cameron Mackenzie, Matt Jones and Stuart Gregor, it has become the most internationally distributed Australian craft gin, built on botanical sourcing discipline rather than scale. Gin is a useful category for this, because it is the one clear spirit legally required to taste of something: the botanicals cannot be refined away, so the farming behind them arrives in the glass whether or not anyone intended it to.

The Rare Dry Gin uses Tasmanian pepperberry alongside juniper, cardamom and lavender, and B Corp certification covers the whole operation: sourcing, energy, supply chain, worker welfare. It has drawn 95 points from Decanter and Best Contemporary Gin at multiple international competitions. The Bloody Shiraz Gin, made by macerating Yarra Valley Shiraz grapes, is the more idiosyncratic bottle and has found an audience among people who do not otherwise follow Australian spirits.

Rare Dry Gin is distilled with whole fresh oranges. The spent fruit used to go in the bin; since 2015 it has gone into marmalade instead, 25,000 jars of it.

What we take from Four Pillars is that international distribution and sourcing discipline are not in tension. Growing your own citrus does not scale easily, and they did it anyway while getting considerably larger.