The Four Pillars Australian Christmas Gin is back for 2020. This is the fifth year the annual release has become available, and the iconic Yarra Valley distillery hasn’t changed a thing since Head Distiller Cam Mackenzie first decided to throw a couple of Christmas puddings into a batch of otherwise regular Four Pillars gin.
Cam and fellow Four Pillars founders Matt Jones and Stuart Gregor have continued the Christmas Gin tradition ever since, uniting their families every year to make the plum puddings necessary for the annual batch.
The pudding recipe comes from Cam’s late mother, Wilma, and was actually published in a 1968 edition of Women’s Weekly. The puddings are distiller with a range of botanicals, including juniper, star anise, cardamom, lavender, orange, pepperberry, angelica, lemon myrtle, and coriander. Then, it’s aged for a year in 100-year-old Muscat barrels.
The resulting Whisky essentially tastes like Christmas pudding in a bottle and carries enough heat to get you in the Christmas spirit.
Each year, Four Pillars commissions a different artist to design the labels for the bottling. For the 2020 edition, Melbourne-born artist Lucy Dyson created the label. You might know her best from Beyonce’s Formation World Tour animations and Courtney Barnett music videos.
Four Pillars Australian Christmas Gin is set to launch this week and will be available to purchase for $100 until sold out.
Back in August, Four Pillars added Olive Leaf Gin to its lineup. The new savory spirit from the distillery has been infused with olive leaf and oil and has been five years in the making. It all started with Cousin Vera’s Gin, a limited offering that the distillery made with their friends at Santamanía in Madrid, when they made their “first foray into savoury, Mediterranean-inspired gin flavours.”
Cam describes the resulting Gin as “savoury, textural, bright and perfect for any Martini.”