Overview
The sun's a-shining and our love affair with the G&T is about to fire up for another year. But this season, that gin in your glass could be more local than ever before. Patient Wolf, Melbourne's newest small-batch gin producer, is about to launch its first creation.
It's been a long time coming, as Matt Argus and Dave Irwin, the duo behind the Brunswick boutique distillery, will tell you. The pair has spent the past three years travelling the world, learning from some of the best in the gin biz and perfecting this first batch, which has been made with the help of their custom-built Müller copper still.
What they've crafted is a smooth and beautifully-balanced premium dry gin. It's a new-school riff on the classic London dry style, with botanicals like elderflower and ruby grapefruit mingling with more adventurous additions, such as Central American tonka beans. These guys are nodding to tradition while embracing innovation, and keeping things small — each run will be capped at just 220 bottles.
A recipe for success, it seems, given that half of Patient Wolf's first batch had been snapped up, just two days after launching a Pozible online pre-order campaign. But even if you miss out this time, fear not – sky-high demand has seen Argus and Irwin jump straight onto batch number two, with pre-orders for this also open.