From the grains to the red wine barrels, we source all our ingredients from within a day's drive of our Port Melbourne distillery. Melbourne's notorious four seasons in one day is our secret weapon when it comes to maturing our whisky. The constant change in temperature makes our barrels contract and expand at a much faster rate. Meaning our whisky takes on all those delicious flavours from the wood.
The Starward Distillery was founded in 2007 by David Vitale. When David decided to establish his own whisky distillery, he found that Melbourne’s weather presented a unique opportunity for whisky making.
Melbourne has extremely changeable weather. The Starward website calls this “Melbourne’s notorious four seasons in one day.” As a result of the ever-fluctuating temperature, the barrels in which the whisky matures expand and contract at a faster rate, allowing the whisky to seep into every crack in the wood and be imbued with its influence. This influence, as you will go on to read, comes from Australia’s famous red wines.
And so, Starward Distillery was built in Port Melbourne, close to the Yarra River and Hobsons Bay, under the tagline ‘Taking whisky to new horizons’.
From the outset, Starward’s ethos was to make uniquely Australian whisky. As such, the whisky is distilled from grains grown no more than a day’s drive from the distillery, mostly within Victoria and New South Wales. Following an extended fermentation of the malted barley, the whisky is distilled in large copper stills. Much of Starward’s whisky is matured exclusively in red wine barrels, with others matured in a combination of casks. One example of this is the Starward 100 Proof Single Malt Whisky, which is matured in a combination of American oak and Australian red wine.
