Overview
While seeing fruit mince pies in your local shopping centre in October feels downright disturbing, there's one Christmas treat that no one ever minds arriving early: Four Pillars annual Christmas Gin.
The latest iteration of the Healesville distillery's seasonal sip is coming in strong, set to hit shelves on Saturday, November 2. It's the delicious result of a yearly tradition that sees a bunch of Christmas puddings handmade with distiller Cameron Mackenzie's mother's recipe — the 1968 Australian Women's Weekly recipe, in fact — distilled with various festive botanicals to create a sought-after tipple that pretty much screams December 25.
The flavours of an Aussie Christmas are captured in notes of cinnamon, star anise, juniper, coriander and angelica. The Christmas gin is then blended with some earlier gin that's been carefully ageing in 80-year-old muscat barrels. It's all finished with a hit of Rutherglen muscat for a bit of added richness and complexity.
Each year, a new unique label is chosen to wrap up this Christmas creation, setting out to evoke that same festive spirit. The 2019's bottle design is the work of artist Tim Summerton, who lives on a property in the Southern Highlands where he grows hundreds of Indigenous Australian plants. The bottle is decorated with one of them: vibrant red Illawarra flame trees.
The distillers recommend you sip the limited-edition gin straight over ice, mix it with ginger ale or whip up a Christmassy martinez with gin, vermouth, Benedictine and Angostura bitters. Or you can just splash a bit of it on your own Christmas pudding.
If you want to nab a bottle, have your fingers poised over the 'buy' button when they go on sale online on November 2. Alternatively, you can stop by the Four Pillars HQ in Healesville, Victoria. Bottles are $100 a pop and would make stellar Chrissy pressies, if you're already thinking about that.
Four Pillars Christmas Gin is available from November 2, in selected retail stores and online. But you'd best be quick — there's only a limited amount of bottles.