Blueberry Gin

“Gold Medal” winner at The Australian Gin Awards 2022.
The spirit base is 100% blueberries, hand processed, fermented and aged on our farm then distilled in our column still Cecil, to produce our magnificent blueberry spirit.

Twice, during the season, we collect fruit from Coffs Harbour Coast’s largest Blueberry Co-operative, Ozgroup, to make our Blueberry Gin. Major retailers demand that punnets of blueberries contain fruit which are all the same size, and perfectly round and the packhouse has invested strongly to meet these stringent retail market specifications.  Unfortunately, or fortunately for us, blueberries don’t grow like this and there is ‘waste’  which we happily rescue  and convert to Gin. The berries are beautiful, just deemed too big or small for the market (?). Sometimes they are an oval shape (titch, titch). They certainly are not ‘seconds’.

The fruit is cooked to release juices and flavour from the skin, in 200kg lots. The resultant juice and mashed berries is allowed to cool and then fermented  with wine makers yeast.  Regular plunging and the fermentation process extracts all the flavour from the fruit, which is then pressed producing a gorgeous wine and a mash without flavour! All the flavour is captured in the wine.

Once the wine is cleared, a portion is distilled to a clear blueberry spirit.  Botanicals, including juniper, lemon peel, Australian Vanilla and Australian Cinnamon are macerated in the clear spirit and eventually redistilled to produce a clear gin base with blueberry and botanicals flavour. This spirit is used to fortify the Blueberry wine producing Blueberry Gin at 40% abv. Commonly there is some residual sugars present in the blueberry mash which makes this a ‘sweetish’ gin, but not like a gin liqueur such as Sloe Gin.

The dealcoholized blueberry wine from the distillation process is jellified and turned into a Blueberry Jelly.  This jelly is terrific on scones and cream, used as a glaze for lamb or pork or added to a cheese board.  Little and large pots are available at the cellar door, ask for a tasting if you are visiting us! This is a ‘zero waste’ product.

Blueberry Gin has been amongst our top sellers since its introduction in 2019. With a wide appeal across the community of Gin drinkers it is best enjoyed neat with ice or mixed with a quality low sugar tonic, such as Long Rays Pacific Tonic. The Blueberry Elderflower Fizz – 30mL Blueberry Gin, 15mL Elderflower cordial, ice and tonic water either as a short or long drink (garnish with fresh or dried orange slice, sprig of lemon thyme) remains our most popular cocktail at the distillery cellar door or at events.

Fermenting Blueberries

Pressing Blueberry mash using a hydropress