Can Australia Make Bourbon?

17 Aug

Short answer: no. Slightly longer answer: Australia can make whisky that is, in every meaningful way, made like bourbon – but it can’t be called bourbon. This is the Champagne Vs Sparkling Wine reality in whisky form, or a version of it anyway. This quirk of whisky law explains why you might see a shelf of "bourbon-style" Australian bottles.

Bourbon is a place, not just a recipe

"Bourbon" isn't only a set of production rules. It's a protected national product of the United States, in the same way Scotch belongs to Scotland, Cognac to France and Tequila to Mexico. Under US law, the word bourbon may not be used for any whisky that wasn't distilled and aged in the United States. That's not a guideline – it's written into the American standards of identity.

This means that the single most important "ingredient" in bourbon is: American soil. You can copy the recipe exactly, but you can’t call your product bourbon.

And Australia has specifically agreed to that

This isn't just America asserting something Australia can ignore. Australia has formally recognised "Bourbon" as a distinctive product of the United States through the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement. In other words, the rule is enforceable here, by our own agreement. If an Australian distiller put the word "bourbon" on their label – they'd be in breach of this Agreement, and could expect a tonne of bricks headed their way.

So what makes a bourbon a bourbon?

This is a good thing to know. To carry the name in the US, a whisky must tick every one of these:

Made in the USA – distilled and aged on American soil.
At least 51% corn in the mash bill. The rest can be rye, wheat, malted barley or a mix – that's where a distiller builds their character.
Aged in new, charred oak barrels. Not used casks – new ones, charred on the inside. (This is a big point of difference from Scotch and most Australian single malt, which lean on used casks.)
Distilled to no more than 160 proof (80% ABV) and barrelled at no more than 125 proof (62.5% ABV).
Bottled at 80 proof (40% ABV) or higher.
No additives beyond water – no colouring, no flavouring.

What "bourbon-style" on an Australian label means

When an Australian producer says "bourbon-style," they're telling you they've followed the American bourbon recipe as far as they honestly or possibly can: a corn-heavy mash bill, matured in new charred oak, with an aim to create the sweet, vanilla-and-caramel, big-oak profile bourbon is loved for.

This is honest labelling. It’s also useful. It sets your expectations correctly. You're not getting a single malt's ex-fortified richness; you're getting the corn-and-new-oak style, but made in Australia.

The bottom line

Australia can't make bourbon, but it can make excellent whisky in the bourbon style, and a growing number of distillers are doing exactly that.

One such Exhibit A: Great Southern Distilling's Tiger Snake – made in Albany from corn, rye and malted barley. This was Australia's first legal sour mash whisky. It won the Best Australian Grain Whisky trophy at the World Whiskies Awards. As Great Southern Distilling says: if Tiger Snake was made in the United States, it would simply be called bourbon – but, exactly like Champagne, the real thing can only come from home.

Related reading on the site: [The Whisky Styles Australia Does Best] · [What Is Single Malt Whisky] · [Why Australian Whisky Is So Expensive]

Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com