By Sacha Delfosse
Tamborine Mountain Distillery (TMD) continues to gain international recognition for its unique range of spirits distilled from Australian-grown products, making it one of the most awarded distilleries in the world.
Recent wins at the Beverage Tasting Institute’s (BTI) International Review of Spirits Awards in the US brings the amount of medals the distillery has won this year to 40, and the total number of accolades it has received over the years to 197.
BTI awarded the distillery silver medals for its Eaux-de-Vie de Poire and Eaux-de-Vie de Pomme, and gold medals for its Eaux-de-Vie Fraise and Eaux-de-Vie Apricot, with the latter receiving an impressive rating of 93 points.
Apart from producing award-winning spirits, the distillery is also renowned domestically for going out of its way to service the needs of local bartenders.
“Many bars and restaurants are small just like us and cannot afford to purchase cases of product, we are only to happy to supply them one bottle if that is their desire,” TMD’s Michael Ward says.
“Bartenders are always asking us can you make this for us and generally we can oblige. Being artisanal allows us to do this, plus the quality is so much higher in small batch distillations.”
Because the distillery is proudly Australian, Ward says that despite the international recognition it is motivated “to become an icon in our own country not to boast of export success” and the company has plenty of new products in the pipeline for 2012.
“There are very few women distillers in the world and we are very proud to have one here at TMD in the name of my wife, plus my daughter Sonya heads the sales and marketing division,” Ward says.
TMD has some great brews.
Always keen to try new ones