Once in a lifetime

…And you may find yourself with a beautiful gin in a beautiful bottle with a beautiful label.

And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

Fair question.

About six months after the closure of my beloved bar, The Owl House, in very late 2019, Julian Noble and I registered Noble Craft Distillery. You know… just in time.

Between license applications and figuring out which equipment to purchase, lockdown was spent studying online with the Institute of Brewing and Distilling UK.

Between lockdowns, I spent time at Riverbourne Distillery with Martin Pye, distilling whisky and badgering him with questions.

…And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large machine…

and you may ask yourself,

“How do I work this?”

Water dissolving and water removing.

Like many who set out to make whisky in craft distilleries in Australia and around the world, it’s common to enter the market first with a gin.

Making whisky properly takes time because aging is an essential part.

But gin—oh, gin—gin is “easy”. It’s ready for market in just a couple of months.

Letting the days go by, the equipment arrived, and the gin-making journey began.

Between reading books, listening to podcasts, and hiring a mentor—thank you Marcel Thompson—and distilling a library of scents and flavours, I developed a recipe for Noble Craft Gin.

More importantly, I fell in love with the art of making gin and the scientific craft of distilling.

Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime