2023 has been a particularly busy yr for Hawkesbury spirit-crafters Karu Distillery. Since Hills to Hawkesbury Community News final talked with Karu in March, they have continued to rack up acclaim worldwide for their high-quality merchandise.
Their world-class Morita Chipotle Vodka emerged as the sole platinum spirit in the Infused/Flavoured Vodka category at the current Las Vegas Global Spirit Awards; their three other signature drinks additionally took home platinum rankings. Their recently debuted Orsa Coffee Gin liqueur took residence Best Liqueur and Best in Show on the Tasting Australia Spirit, and the Distillery gained a Hawkesbury Business Award and was a finalist in the Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards.
For Karu’s head distiller Ally Ayres, who founded the Distillery in 2018 along with her husband Nick, says this year being Karu’s busiest thus far has also made it top-of-the-line. She says: “We’ve taken on more staff, we’ve got a warehouse in Richmond now, we’re producing extra spirits – and we’re able to get again on the market after not having the power to for therefore lengthy in the past four years!”
Orsa is another spirit from Karu that could solely be made within the Hawkesbury, because of a collaboration with Darren Gerbasch’s Little Coffee Co within the Blue Mountains. “We met Darren at a tourism beverage path meeting a number of years ago, and he’s simply as enthusiastic about coffee as we are spirits. We approached him and we asked him to show us a bit about coffee expertise. He made a custom brew for us, and it was two or three months of R&D from seriously getting started with it to where Orsa is at present.”
Karu Distillery Delivering Quality Community Spirits
Head distiller ally ayres with karu merchandise and awards
Although the Karu team have been travelling all around the nation and accumulating awards on the worldwide stage, they’ve continued to extremely worth the position of the community of their success. “Because KARU Delivering Quality Community Spirits was very a lot a collaboration of native companies, it’s been nicely received by the neighborhood – and we love to do those kinds of issues,” says Ally. “It’s actually cool that after the amount of stuff the community and business has gone through the final couple of years, we’ve been able to get the spark back a bit and produce one thing that’s truly a community spirit!”
Reflecting on the 12 months that’s passed by, Ally has been able to find a lot of joy among the busyness. “We’ve had more events than ordinary, more distillation and ferment days, more barrels than ordinary – and we’re having an actual fun time with that. We’re getting back out there and cementing Australia as a spot of quality and having the medals and trophies to prove that. It’s been actually good!”
Ally, Nick and the Karu team have been hard at work creating loads of spirits for the holiday season, whereas additionally planning numerous different products for 2024. Keep updated with the world-class local Distillery here: https://www.fb.com/KaruDistillery
To hear extra from Ally about Orsa, regulate our website and Facebook for a video interview coming within the next week.