A small distillery on Smith Street in Collingwood has beaten 800 entries from 35 countries to win the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Supreme Gold for its gin — a spirit that swaps traditional juniper dominance for native Australian botanicals like lemon myrtle, strawberry gum, and Tasmanian pepperberry.
Patience & Fortitude Distilling, founded by partners Jack Moriarty and Yuki Tanaka in a former Collingwood warehouse in 2024, produces just 500 bottles a month of its flagship "Bushland" gin. The win at the IWSC has changed everything: orders have flooded in from London, Tokyo, New York, and Reykjavik, and the distillery has a waiting list stretching into August.
"We wanted to make a gin that could only come from Australia," says Moriarty, a former sommelier who traded wine for spirits after a foraging trip through the Victorian high country changed his perspective on native flavours. "Every botanical in our gin grows within a few hundred kilometres of Melbourne."
The botanicals are sourced through a partnership with Outback Pride, an Indigenous-owned enterprise that works with Aboriginal communities across Australia to cultivate and supply native ingredients. Tanaka, who handles the technical side of distillation, describes the process as "a conversation between Japanese precision and Australian wildness."
The resulting gin is strikingly aromatic — piney and citrus-forward, with a long peppery finish that distinguishes it from anything produced in Europe. Melbourne bartenders have taken notice: Bushland gin is now featured at Eau de Vie, the Everleigh, and Bar Margaux, and was named Melbourne's Gin of the Year at the 2025 Australian Drinks Awards.
"Winning the IWSC is incredible, but what really matters is that people taste this and think about the landscape it comes from," Tanaka says. "Australia has the most extraordinary native larder on Earth. We're just scratching the surface."