The spirit is alive at Kangaroo Island

This is part of a series of articles by Gillian Johnston as she travels with AAT Kings.The first article was ‘The Puffing Billy Train‘ and the second article was ‘A farm of a different kind at Kangaroo Island pairs nicely with the local wine‘, the third article was ‘The Australian War Memorial Tour‘, the fourth was ‘A unique Tower Hill experience‘ and the fifth was ‘Beenchworth — an historical town‘.

A visit to a boutique distillery was an unexpected surprise on Kangaroo Island.

Just 10 minutes from the Kangaroo Island capital at Kingscote is South Australia’s only boutique distillery and we were off to taste a selection of its handcrafted premium spirits.

All of the gin, vodka and liqueurs are handmade, bottled, capped and labelled in small batches on-site, and you are able to smell the aroma of different plants, citrus peel or even fennel lingering as you taste the award winning Australian product.

This distillery was very different to large distilleries that are housed in business premises or large buildings. We drove into a driveway beside a house and went into the back yard to park. There was a patio at the back of the home and it was set up as a classroom with rows of chairs.

On the other side of the back yard was a tin shed that was used to display the products and was used as a distillery.

When we filed into the patio area, there were a lot of glasses of pink gin prepared at the front of the room and we were given a speech about the history of gin, and an introduction on how to identify the key aromas and flavours found in the different types.

Kangaroo Island Spirits (affectionately known as KIS) offered tasting of a number of gin samples and the flavours and taste was really was different to the normal run of gins.

There had been a love for gin in the family and this resulted in a gin distillery being established.

Sara and John Lark had fallen in love and while on honeymoon and decided to set up the distillery in Cygney River. With a knowledge of aquaculture and plumbing, water quality and chemistry, John found he had quite the skills for starting a distillery.

John’s brother had also helped them to get a licence for the business about 10 years ago and given them a lot of advice on how to improve their gin.

With grapes from the Barossa Valley the Lark’s experimented and found it reacted with the copper, making it smoother in taste than when going through the still on its own. They indicated it had all been a “learn as you go” process but they also attended some workshops in Sweden and the United Kingdom.

With the old still they have been making about 18 litres of gin each time but the new still, which has been made and delivered from Tasmania, they will be able to produce 300 litres of gin per batch, which will greatly increase their share of the market.

The flavours of the gin ranged from mulberry to KIS’s very special and well known wild gin and we were told there had been a lot of different ingredients trialled for their flavours.

When the talk finished we went across to the tin shed and tasted some of the liqueurs with their combinations of lemon and ginger, anisette and wild fennel and honey and walnut being only a few. Other flavours used some of the botanicals and up to a dozen different types of Australian flavours.

They enhanced their gins by using some of the leaves from the coastal daisy bush olearia, native Juniper and locally grown lemon myrtle and aniseed myrtle.

We were told the KIS offers a blending day where people are invited to come and blend their own gin, choosing some of the different flavours that are available. On these days you start in the little classroom with an introduction to gin and how you can blend your own gin using the separate distillates and their own basic formula.

You are then allowed to mix your own gin combining flavours and tasting and experimenting. Some of the flavours provided include juniper, orange, lemon, cassia, pepper, Angelica root, lime and ginger. The guests are able to make enough gin for a gin and tonic drink and fill a 200ml bottle to take home.

All of the blending days have been a great success with many people purchasing before they leave. The Kangaroo Island Spirits will also host your private function doing a similar process of informing you of their gin, flavours, and give tastings.

The liqueurs, which were absolutely delightful and very different from what you might expect of a liqueur, were very popular with our group from AAT Kings.

No wonder the gin had won the Champion’s Trophy in the Australian Distilled Spirits Awards in the Royal Agricultural Society of Melbourne.

Many of the visitors left feeling they had a very unique experience and tasted so many delicious gins and liqueurs of such high quality and different to what is on the shelf in any bottle shop. The premium gins are now being offered internationally and I am sure this unique distillery will be expanding enormously as soon as the new still is in place.

Do you enjoy spirits and liqueurs or do you prefer wine? Is a trip to Kangaroo Island on your bucket list?