Melbourne’s own David Vitale was inspired to create a spirit that reflected his hometown’s famed ‘four seasons in a day’ temperature swings and captured the production values and craft of a city surrounded by some of Australia’s leading wine regions and regarded as the microbrewing capital of Australia.
The brand currently works out of a purpose-built distillery in Melbourne’s Docklands Precinct, which was established in 2016. This move allowed Starward to double its capacity to 50,000 nine-litre cases annually. The distillery also features on-site maturation warehouses and state-of-the-art visitor facilities including a bar.
The tools and ingredients to create an authentically Australian whisky include barley sourced from between Hunter Valley in Northern Sydney and the Adelaide Hills and apera and red wine casks from Victoria to mature the whisky. The distillery refers to the amount of time a whisky spends in cask as ‘Melbourne years’, which refers to the phenomenon that occurs when whisky is aged in a warmer climate, which affects the maturation process and has the apparent influence of accelerating it.
Starward continue to create affordable, approachable and modern whisky with a uniquely Australian character.