Located in NSW in an area known as the Devil’s Wilderness, award-winning Karu Distillery is on a sustainability journey, which aims to protect and conserve the natural environment that surrounds the distillery.
Head Distiller, Ally Ayres, who co-owns the distillery alongside her husband, Nick, said that she is lucky to be so close to nature at Karu.
“We’re located in a stunning environment, where we are on 40 acres of really beautiful bushland that backs on to the Blue Mountains National Park. We share it with a lot of nature and wildlife, so sustainability is always in the front of our mind,” she said.
The impacts of climate change are a very real issue for Karu Distillery, with fires during the 2020 NSW Bushfires spreading as close as a mere kilometre from the distillery, and flooding twice. As well as making steps toward greater sustainability, Karu has raised money to support the NSW Rural Fire Service, in recognition of the protection and support they offer fire-affected communities.
Additionally, Karu Distillery has some unusual neighbours, with Ayres occasionally needing to relocate Death Adders and other snakes to more preferable locations within the nearby NationalPark. This care for animals extends into the distillery’s charitable causes, which recently released the first in a series of gins supporting the African cheetah. A portion of the proceeds of Wildling: Jubatus goes towards the Wild Cat Conservation Centre in Wilberforce NSW, which is Australia’s only cheetah breeding program and has successfully released an Australian-bred cheetah into the African wilds.
Starting to think sustainably
For Ayres, sustainability starts small, with a view towards steady and incremental improvement of the practices within the distillery.
“Sustainability for us is doing something for the big picture of the planet. Whatever you can do, big or small is helpful.
“It’s very expensive to be fully sustainable, especially when you’re a small-to-medium size brand. It’s always harder to do things sustainably straight off the cuff, so it’s a slow, steady journey,” she said.
A simple place to start is with transitioning to more sustainable packaging, which Ayres said is often a more cost-effective option as well as being environmentally conscious.
“When we get our bottles, they arrive in a pallet with dividers between them. What we do is when we order boxes, we don’t order dividers, we just cut the dividers from the bottles. They’re not the prettiest but they work better, and it saves on cost a little bit. We also use water-based inks when we can, and our cartons are made from recycled cardboard. We’re rebranding our rum, too, so we made the conscious choice to pick label stock made from repurposed coffee sacks,” she said.
In the long run, Ayres also hopes to utilise renewable energy at the distillery.
“It would be cool to start implementing things like solar power. Again, it’s a very slow process, but where we are, we’re spoiled with the options for natural energy. It would be nice to eventually start upgrading parts of the distillery so at least parts of it run on solar.”
From the ground up
Another area in which Ayres thinks sustainably and locally is with the botanicals used in Karu’s gin and flavour-forward vodkas. Many of the botanicals are grown on site, with others sourced from local growers.
“We grow our own lemon myrtle, which is quite a common native botanical, especially in the contemporary space of gin. We have two trees at the distillery and one at our house, so we use lemon myrtle from those three trees all year round. We use recycled water in the garden, so it’s not fresh tank water.
“We also grow grapefruit, and while it’s not enough to sustain a year’s worth of runs, we source citrus locally if we can’t use our own. We grow pomegranates as well, and this year’s harvest was so good, it was enough for about a year and a half’s worth of runs. We also grow rose geranium, and it’s more of an old English style of botanical, but rose geranium held a lot of significance to me as a child. It’s the same plant from my childhood that we’re using, so that’s really special to us,” she said.
The gardens at Karu have other plants that are not currently in use in its spirits, increasing the site’s biodiversity.
“We’ve had a crack at growing other native plants, and they haven’t worked out for the gin we’re making, but they still have a home in our garden,” Ayres said.
Once the distillery has used the botanicals, they live a second life with local producers.
“With our spent botanicals, we send them to local chefs and culinary schools, so they’re repurposed into hot sauces, salts, rubs, and all kinds of products. We’ve used the botanicals for what we can, and now other people can use them for what they can. It’s great to see the creativity in what people are able to do with them,” Ayres said.
Not only does using home- and locally-grown botanicals reduce transport costs and ensure that they are being grown sustainably, they have an impact on the quality of Karu’s spirits.
“You can really notice the power of fresh botanicals versus dry. We distil through vapour infusion as well, which is where the alcohol vapours go through a basket and collect the flavour. When you’re using fresh botanicals like citrus, and they have a lot of oil and flavour to give, so it makes a big difference if they’re fresh. It’s great that we can use our own botanicals for that,” Ayres said.
Additionally, the distillery can rely on its own supply for key botanicals.
“If you don’t have a botanical, you need to source it from somewhere else, and especially something like lemon myrtle is in really high demand. A lot of distilleries tell us that they’re waiting on lemon myrtle to come in, and they need to put gin production on hold because they only have so much. It’s great that we don’t have that issue,” Ayres said.
Keenly conscious of the importance of preserving our stunning natural environments, Ayres and the Karu team are constantly looking for ways, both large and small, to improve the sustainable practices at the distillery. Ayres said that thankfully, many other businesses are also interested in the same goal, easing the road for progress across multiple avenues.
“There are lots of quirky things that crop up, and lots of new options. There’s a lot of new things we can do.”