Walk into almost any bar in the country and youโll see the name Archie Rose staring back at you from the shelves โ a brand that, in a little over a decade, has muscled its way into the Australian spirits conversation. But Archie Rose didnโt just appear out of nowhere. It began with a spark in 2012, when Will Edwards, then working for Deloitte, saw firsthand the energy of Brooklynโs urban distilleries. Two years later, Archie Rose was born, and Australiaโs craft spirits scene was ready for something bigger.
From a modest distillery in Rosebery to the cavernous production site in Botany Edwards and I are sitting in, Archie Rose has grown at a pace that mirrors its ambition. Today, the portfolio stretches across whisky, gin, rum, vodka, and even canned cocktails, but the real story is whisky, and the determination to make it as Aussie as possible.
โWe really just wanted to make genuinely authentic Australian whisky,โ says Edwards. โWhen I say that it sounds like a bit of a clichรฉ, but effectively whisky that speaks of where itโs from โ all the grain grown and malted in Australia, and if possible within the state.โ Edwards points to their R&D releases, where innovation โtrickles down into the main products, you start with trials in limited land and then it comes down into core product.โ
An obvious problem, he says, is that in the earlier days they were importing malt from the UK. โEveryone can talk a big sustainability game, but at the end of the day, if youโre shipping tonnes of something from the other side of the world, it doesnโt matter if youโre recycling and eliminating plastic, youโre shipping over grain โ itโs crazy.โ This became their core sustainability endeavour, which led them to source Australian grain thatโs more drought-tolerant and less water-hungry.
โIt might be lower yielding, but it provides a much more distinct flavour than the stuff youโd get out of more commercially grown grain, making a product thatโs genuinely Australian,โ says Edwards. While it varies from whisky to whisky you may find a mix of five or six malts from predominantly NSW and Victoria imparting different characteristics along with the impact of having a barrel program that may use apera or bourbon casks.
A case in point, the Heritage Red Gum Cask Single Malt Whisky matured in casks made from Australian native red gum. Edwards says with a certain degree of glee that he loves the approach. โWe were always going to do it, even if it was bad, because it is a piece of Australian history and it would be like a concept car โ it might not be the greatest thing to drive but itโs super cool and it deserves to exist โ but I think at least for me the thing that surprised me when I tried it was that it was a genuinely good whisky in its own right. Not just historical value, or a niche collector thing, itโs good liquid.โ
If the past decade was about making โgreat, authentically Australian whisky,โ Edwards says the next decade is about sharing it. The challenge has been supply (the standard whisky problem), but Archie Rose has finally scaled production enough to look outward. Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Korea, and New Zealand have been early testing grounds. Europe is next, with the US following soon after.
One advantage Archie Rose carries is independence. As Edwards puts it, being a family business, with only him and his father as shareholders, allows them to โtake a really long-term viewโ and do things โin the way that we consider proper.โ That independence has allowed them to think in decades, not quarters. A luxury most distilleries, particularly in the start-up phase, canโt afford.
Internationally, Edwards believes thereโs room for Australian whisky to carve out its own identity, much like Japanese whisky did before it. โIโd say Japanese whisky has defined itself in a sense, to the point you can say, that feels like a Japanese whisky and people have a sense of what that means. I donโt think Australian whisky has that defined set of attributes in those markets, and thatโs something that needs to be developed by the industry.โ
What Archie Rose brings is high quality, innovation, and the freedom to operate without the weight of tradition. โThereโs a bit of an Australian cultural thing around looking to do things differently, not necessarily sticking to the norms, and challenging the status quo,โ Edwards says. That spirit, he argues, resonates with whisky drinkers eager to try something new.
For Edwards, the mission is clear: โto show as many people as possible what Australian whisky actually is, have them appreciate the differences and why Archie Rose are making it their way.โ
The challenge is formidable, but the ambition is bigger still. To help define what Australian whisky means in the global imagination, and to make sure that when people pour a dram from Archie Rose, theyโre tasting not just whisky, but a piece of Australia itself.
This article is presented in partnership with Archie Rose Distilling Co. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Boss Hunting.
