Behind the scenes of our local Melbourne distillery
Step off the streets of leafy Eltham in Melbourne’s North and transport yourself back to the decadent 1920s with our classic speakeasy-style bar and onsite distillery. As you enter the venue our bar spans the length of the room with our 800-litre copper still acting as an altar at the end. Sit and enjoy a tantalising and delectable gin experience while inside a working distillery at Naught Gin.
Our unique gin distillation process
At Naught we draw out our distilling process to ensure we maximise flavour and oil extraction. We begin by sourcing the best botanicals from around the world to provide the best quality gin you can buy.
To begin we start by using a base spirit distilled from wheat, which means we can begin creating our gin with a high-quality canvas right from the start. Wheat-based spirits carry lovely oils, creating a velvety mouthfeel and long finish on the palate which resonates with our customers.
This base spirit is then pumped into our 800-litre copper pot still where we begin to add our botanicals in the maceration stage of our distillation. These botanicals are agitated and heated up in an overnight process to maximise oil extraction.
The next morning we turn on the still and start the distillation process. The still heats up gradually and once the internal temperature hits 78 degrees the gin starts to evaporate and make its way through the pipes of the still. This helps clean the spirit and purify the vapour before it is run through a condenser which turns the vapour back into a liquid flowing out of the still at about 90%ABV. This liquid is now called gin.
We capture hundreds of kilograms of gin each run over a period of about 8 hours. We then rest this high-proof spirit, for a short period of time. Once the spirit is rested we dilute it to bottle strength before pouring into bottle, labelling and packing.
An award-winning Australian gin
Naught’s original Australian Dry Gin was the first of our releases, taking over 300 distillations and years of planning to achieve the perfect blend. Finally released in 2020, four years after its conception, taking home multiple trophies from the Australian Distilled Spirits Awards and scoring Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Our Overproof and Sangiovese Gin were released in mid-2021, and both have also won Gold medals at the San Francisco WSC and IWSC respectively. All three varieties now feature throughout our venue’s unique cocktail range and have continued to garner both local and international acclaim.
With such high praise of our spirits in only a matter of years, it means it was a no-brainer for owner Chris Cameron to extend the range. As an ode to our cocktail bar’s ongoing theme of being “playfully wicked” and featuring a menu that is inspired by 1920s opulence, Naught the added another wicked drop to our line-up with the launch of our Classic Dry Gin. This gin draws inspiration from the original London Dry Gin style, with fresh and bright notes of pine and juniper dominating and lemon and lime subtly coming through, creating the perfect base for a dry Martini. With a vision to create a spirit for the gin purists and connoisseurs, Chris set out on a two-year journey of trial and error utilising the months in lockdown to craft and refine different ratios of botanicals before finally finding the perfect blend.
