Starward – the moderniser

Starward – the moderniser
Melbourne, Victoria.
ABV: Nova 41%, $120; Two-Fold 40%, $78; Honeycomb (double grain) 40%, $88 – all 700ml core range.

David Vitale's Starward did more than almost anyone to make Australian whisky a style rather than a curiosity. From a distillery in inner-city Port Melbourne, Vitale built the whole idea around the wine country on its doorstep: Starward sources its red-wine barrels within hours of being emptied and "wet fills" them – still wet with wine – with new-make spirit, then lets Melbourne's notorious four-seasons-in-a-day weather do the rest, the wild temperature swings driving flavour into the whisky fast(er). It's a deliberately modern, wine-inflected, distinctly mainland approach – and, just as importantly, one built to actually reach people. Where the founders of Australian whisky proved that Australian whisky could exist, Starward proved it could be a category of its own, priced and produced to land both on a bottle-shop shelf near you, and a back-bar in New York alike. Its Nova – matured entirely in those red-wine barrels – is the signature, and the natural introduction to Starward.

You have to love Starward. It brings quality, distinctive Australian whisky to the people.