Tailored Spirits: A Sensory Lab Focus
You’ll often hear us saying that we're all about pushing the boundaries of what's possible in spirits. We say it because we mean it, and because we think the way we make our Tailored Spirits truly captures this ethos. Born from our Sensory Lab, our Tailored Spirits offering is about so much more than just creating great gifts—it's a revolutionary approach to making gin, vodka, and whisky that allows you to design your own individual blend of spirits, from liquid to label.
Let’s begin with Tailored Gin. most gin distilleries follow a pretty standard playbook: put all the ingredients together, distil, and call it a day. Instead of one big batch, at Archie Rose, we carefully distil each botanical separately, with a focus on sourcing the highest quality local and native ingredients. We think of it as creating a palette of individual and nuanced flavours that we can mix and match to perfection later on.
For instance, we might distil 1,000 litres of juniper, then another 1,000 of coriander, and so on. This gives us incredible control over the final product and is one of the ways we’re able to then give you the ability to tailor your own individual bottle of gin. We can dial up the flavours you love and tone down the ones you don't. It's a bit like being a bespoke perfumer, but with spirits.
Our whisky-making process is where things get really interesting. Traditionally, whisky is made by fermenting all the ingredients together, distilling, and then aging in barrels. We take a different approach, with a process we’ve patented ourselves called “individual malt stream”. Through this process, we create distinct flavour profiles right from the start, using different types of malted Australian barley – from light and fruity to deep and roasted. These individual distillates are then aged separately, giving us a huge range of flavours to work with when it comes time to blend.
From here on, it’s up to you. With all these flavour components at our fingertips, we can create a spirit tailored to your tastes. Want a gin that's heavy on the citrus but light on the juniper? Or a whisky that leans more towards chocolate notes than smoky ones? We can do it.
Of course, this approach has its challenges. It's more expensive and complex than traditional methods. We need more storage space for all those individual distillates, and there's a lot more blending involved. But we feel it's well worth it for the flexibility and creativity it allows us—and you.
Quality control of our spirits is an essential part of this process. Every day, our team blind-tastes our spirits, scoring them on various attributes. It's not just about ensuring everything tastes good (though that's obviously important). We're looking for consistency and making sure we're hitting the mark on all those complex flavour profiles we've created.
The way we craft our Tailored Spirits is absolutely unique. Some other distilleries might offer some level of customisation, but the barrier to entry for doing it at the scale and depth we do is sky-high. It's not just about having the right equipment – it's about building this approach into your entire production process from day one. Our Tailored Gin has become one of the most popular things people buy from our website and while the Tailored Whisky program is newer, it's growing steadily. It's exciting to see people embracing the idea of a spirit made just for them and sharing this with friends and family. Who wouldn’t want something so thoughtfully tailored to their preferences?
Since we first began making spirits, we’ve never seen ourselves as just producing spirits – we see ourselves as challenging the idea of what a spirit can be. By putting some of the creative control in your hands, we're saying we know everyone has individual tastes and preferences, and with our base, we know we can tailor the perfect gin, whisky or vodka for anyone. The possibilities for us and the way we can tailor spirits are endless. To us, it feels like the future of spirits, and our thirst for innovation in this space will never be quenched.
