Why Australian rye whiskey tastes different – in a good way
Former engineers who dabbled in distilling are now using Australian grain to cater to rye whiskey enthusiasts around the world.
Making whiskey from rye, says Andrew Fitzgerald, is the best way of expressing the unique character of where the grain is grown.
Rye is not malted, meaning the flavour that comes from the paddock is intact heading into the production process, whereas barley – by far the more common grain used in whisky* – is malted before being milled, fermented and distilled. This obscures the raw flavour of the grain, argues Fitzgerald, “losing the lineage, the distinct character of the farm”.
The Gospel sources its rye from Pinaroo in South Australia and Gippsland, Victoria for a small-batch release.
The rye that Fitzgerald and co-founder Ben Bowles uses for almost all the whiskeys under their label, The Gospel, comes from a single farm in Pinnaroo, in South Australia’s Mallee region. It’s arid, broadacre farming country that produces small, intensely flavoured grains, which in turn produces intensely flavoured whiskey.
Why is this “sense of place” important?
“When we started The Gospel, we had aspirations to take the brand global,” says Fitzgerald. “We asked ourselves: what’s a style of whiskey that will translate in international markets but is also distinctly Australian.”
The Gospel co-founders, Ben Bowles and Andrew Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald and Bowles met when they were working as engineers at a mining company in the mid-2010s. Fitzgerald was dabbling in amateur distilling in his inner-city garage in Melbourne; Bowles had made his own spirits growing up in South Carolina.
Initially, they established a company called Melbourne Moonshine, using their engineering backgrounds to design and build a lot of the equipment at their first distillery, in Brunswick.
Then, on a trip to the US in 2016, they discovered some amazing rye whiskeys, and were told by many bartenders that it was shaping up to be the next big thing.
So, on returning to Australia, they decided to make their own – only to discover that working with rye is not like working with barley at all.
The grains need to be milled differently and fermented differently (“Once you add water, the milled rye likes to ‘dough-ball’ in the fermenter,” says Fitzgerald, “so we had to design and build a high-speed agitator to stop that happening”). It’s also distilled and matured differently.
The pair spent “a fair bit of time retrofitting” the Brunswick distillery to make rye whiskey, says Fitzgerald, and eventually got into market in March 2020 – just in time for the lockdowns.
The whiskey is distilled in Melbourne.
The first few months were, he says, “a bloody disaster”. But the brand survived and has since gone on to become a success. With The Gospel now available in 3000 outlets across Australia and in 17 export markets around the world (albeit in small volumes), the founders have just begun production at a new facility in Coburg, near the Pentridge Prison development, replicating and improving on their original distillery.
But it’s not all about building volume of the two core whiskeys, the Solera Rye and the Straight Rye. The team at The Gospel also produces three or four small batches a year (a few barrels of this, a few barrels of that) exploring different grain bills and styles of spirit.
Some of these experiments are released under the very limited (single-cask bottling) Gospel Projects label. The last release, called Legacy Rye, was a particularly rich expression made mostly with rye, plus corn and barley (it sold out at the distillery but is still available in some shops and bars). The newest is High Wheat, bottled for the Apollo Inn in Melbourne and with about a third malted wheat in the grain bill.
The Gospel set out to reimagine the American spirit using Australian rye.
Fitzgerald pours me a taste of a new, small-batch whiskey destined for release next year, probably under the Projects label. It’s made from rye sourced from a single farm in south Gippsland, quite different country, with its fertile, rolling hills and much wetter and colder climate, to the flat, dry Mallee.
The Gippsland rye is made from the same variety of grain in the same way and matured in the same type of barrels as The Gospel’s core-range Mallee-sourced Straight Rye. And yet it tastes different: it’s gentler, more citrussy, softer, sweeter – as opposed to the darker, denser characters found in the Mallee version.
Fitzgerald describes it well: “The Mallee whiskey stands up and smacks you in the face with rye flavour. The Gippsland whiskey is like walking through a rye field.”
He says there’s debate in the whisky world about this concept of “terroir”, with some arguing that, once grain is distilled, the spirit is stripped of any characteristics found in the primary ingredient.
“And all I can say is: look, I’ve tasted it coming off the still and I can taste a difference.”
Rye grain produces intensely flavoured whiskey.
There’s more to it than just the flavour, though. Promoting whiskey as an agricultural product, with raw ingredients grown in a specific place, is also a way of connecting people.
“I like to think we serve two communities,” says Fitzgerald. “The community where the grain grows, and the community where we sell our whiskey. So, for example, we sponsor the fireworks at the annual show up at Pinnaroo. It’s a market of fewer than 1000 people, so it makes no economic sense for us to do that. But I really like the idea that, well, the whiskey comes from there, let’s take it back there.”
*Whisky vs whiskey – what’s the story?
Eagle-eyed readers will notice I’ve used both spellings of the word here. That’s because whisky with no “e” (the British spelling) is far more commonly used in this country – for example, “Tasmanian single-malt whisky” or “the Australian whisky market”. But whiskey with an “e” (the American spelling) is used for locally produced whiskeys like The Gospel that are inspired by America.
Tasting The Gospel
The Gospel Solera Rye [Melbourne]
A solera comprises barrels of spirit stacked on top of each other in rows. Some of the spirit is bottled each year from the bottom row of barrels, which is topped up from the row above, which is topped up from the row above – and so on – with the top row of barrels filled with new-make spirit straight from the still. The idea is that, over time, a consistent style, a blend from spirits of different ages, is produced. In The Gospel’s case, the choice of wood also make a difference to the style: the top row of barrels is new American oak, the bottom row is ex-red wine barrels. The result is a full-flavoured, round, almost sweet rye, with notes of toffee and toast and grain. $80
The Gospel Straight Rye Whiskey [Melbourne]
This impressive, full-flavoured whiskey spends at least two years in heavy-toast American oak barrels and is more intensely flavoured than the Solera. It’s darker in character, more savoury, like toasted dark rye bread, but also with some fat, sweet hints, like it’s been drizzled with a touch of vanilla-accented maple syrup. $95
The Gospel Projects High Wheat [Melbourne]
This single-cask release sits at 50 per cent alcohol (the Solera and Straight are 42 and 45 respectively) and packs a hugely expressive punch, with more “conventional” malty, grainy whisky notes (thanks to the malted wheat and barley in the grain bill) and layers of complex texture and flavour. $140
Read next by Drinks columnist Max Allen
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