5 Big Wins For The Team
We’re over the moon to have finished the year with some massive wins for the team at the recent Spirits Business Awards held in London on 23 November.
First up, Archie Rose Founder, Will Edwards, was awarded the Young Achiever Of The Year Award in follow up to his first win for this award in 2020. With the entry criteria of ‘under 35 and having delivered beyond what is humanly possible this year’ this award is tailor made for Will, who first dreamt up a vision for Archie Rose at the age of 24 and nearly nine years and two distilleries later is doing a magnificent job delivering on a goal of bringing the highest quality Australian spirits to the world!
Archie Rose Master Distiller, Dave Withers, also took home the title of Distiller of the Year for the second time in follow up to a first 2020 win. A big callout this year to Dave and the production team for the release of Double Malt Whisky - the first of its kind as a vatting of Archie Rose Rye Malt and Single Malt whiskies and the first Australian all-malt whisky available on the market for a sub $85 price tag.
Another production team win was the Runner’s Up award for Blender Of The Year for our Senior Spirits Blender, David (Fish) Fisher, who joined Archie Rose in 2020 and has since built the sensory team and process from the ground up at our Botany Distillery. This includes a two-prong sensory and data analytics system that forecasts twelve differentce new make styles across 20,000 whisky casks (and counting). He’s also wrestled 160 barley malt maturation blending populations along with multiple cask styles, and is also responsible for the blending and quality control of our white spirits including gins, botanical vodkas and white cane spirits.
The Archie Rose Bar & Cellar Door in Rosebery, Sydney, our original mothership, also took out the top prize for Distillery Consumer Experience in recognition of the incredible job the very awesome bar team does mixing drinks and hosting more than 50,000 people each year for Distillery Tours, Cocktail Classes and Blend Your Own Gin & Whisky Masterclasses. This was hot on the heels of a win for Distillery Bar Of The Year at the Australian Bartender Awards this year!
And finally we were very grateful to win the Innovation In Production Award, again in follow up to our first win in 2020, in recognition of the creativity and fanatical excellence applied every day to the production of all our spirits. This includes working with the best malt growers from around Australia to provide regional character and diversity to our whiskies, including propagating and scaling new grain varieties such as a drought-resistant heirloom rye. 2023 also saw us release a couple of world-first whisky styles such as Australian native stringybark smoked rye malt whisky and malt whisky made with ancient varieties of barley malt, as well as wild-fermented rye made entirely from unirrigated local grains grown during harsh drought conditions.
