A Guide To Australia’s Most Popular Spirits

What Are Spirits?

Spirits are strongly flavoured alcoholic liquors that begin with base ingredients like fruit, grain, and water. These then go through various refining processes, such as grinding, fermentation, ageing, and distillation. The differentiation of these methods and the use of local ingredients helps define each spirit’s unique flavour.

Modern-day drinking culture, particularly in Australia, has seen a rise in demand for zero%* alcohol spirits, low-alcohol spirits, and other styles like vegan, organic, low-carb, and preservative-free drinks.

The Most Popular Spirits

By understanding the different types of spirits, you’ll get to know your favourite drinks better. You may even be more inspired to mix up a new tasty drink!

Whisk(e)y

Made from fermented grain, whisk(e)y is either one or a blend of barley, corn, rye, and wheat. To transform the grain into the spirit, the grain undergoes several processes, including malting, mashing, fermentation, distillation, maturation, and finally bottling.

The way whisk(e)y is spelled comes down to the location where it’s produced — ‘whisky’ if made in Scotland, Japan, Canada, and Australia, and ‘whiskey’ (the addition of ‘e’) if from Ireland and America.

Enjoy this sophisticated spirit simply or shake it into popular whisk(e)y-based cocktails, including Whisk(e)y Sour, Old Fashioned, and Manhattan.

Bourbon

Bourbon is American whiskey, and the most popular bourbons are from Kentucky. For any bourbon, the grain mix should contain at least 51% corn by law. The rest can be malted barley, rye, or wheat, that’s up to the maker.

The laws don’t end there. Bourbon must be also distilled to no more than 80% ABV and aged in new charred American oak barrels for at least two years. A ‘straight bourbon’ means it is aged for at least 4 years. Fair to say, bourbon is a pretty special drop.

Rum

Rum is made from sugarcane (either the juice or molasses), then fermented by adding yeast that converts the sugar into alcohol. After distillation, the epic flavours come out.

Often categorised as premium, aged, or reserve, the rum you buy also comes in many shades, all popular for different reasons. There’s white and silver rum (unaged or just lightly aged), gold and amber rum (aged in barrels), dark rum (aged for a prolonged period creating more pronounced flavours), and spiced rum (infused with spices, such as ginger, cinnamon, clove, and vanilla). Spiced rum and dark rum are Australia’s favourite rum.

Vodka

Vodka is a neutral and versatile base spirit, perfect for making many cocktails. Vodka can be made using grains like wheat, rye, corn, potatoes, and sugar beets, before being distilled to a very high ABV, sometimes over 95%. Producing a clear, almost water-like-looking liquid, vodka can be easily flavoured and often is. You can find vodka ranging in flavours such as raspberry, watermelon, lemon, mixed berries, passionfruit, guava, and even chocolate.

Popular vodka brands in Australia include Smirnoff, Absolut, Vodka Cruiser, Grey Goose, and Vodka O.

Gin

What makes gin so gin? It has to be distilled with juniper. The neutral grain spirit also often has other botanicals added, such as coriander, angelica root, citrus peel, orris root, cardamom, and other herbs or spices.

Enjoy gin in the most popular gin cocktail – Gin and Tonic, or shake it into a Martini or stir it into a Tom Collins. Delicious!

Tequila

A blue agave plant is an essential ingredient for making tequila. Post-harvesting, blue agave goes through the process of baking, milling, fermentation, and distilling before the clear liquid is bottled up.

A popular Australian spirit, tequila is often used to whip some delicious cocktails, including the Margarita, Negroni, and Paloma.

Liqueurs

Liqueurs are flavoured spirits, made by combining a base spirit (usually vodka, whisky, brandy, tequila, cognac, or rum) with other high-flavour ingredients, such as fruits, nuts, spices, herbs, and cream. Typically sweetened, they make a great accompaniment to dessert or any post-meal drink.

Some of Australia’s most popular liqueur brands and flavours to try are Kahlúa (coffee), Baileys (Irish cream), Malibu (coconut), Cointreau (orange), and Limoncello (lemon).

Brandy & Cognac

Brandy is produced by distilling fermented fruit juice, often made from apples, pears, grapes, and cherries. Cognac is a type of brandy that is made under a strict set of rules. Cognac must always be from grapes and produced in the commune of Cognac in the southwest of France. You’ll find Cognac is categorised as VS, VSOP, and XO depending on the ageing and quality.

An overall sweet drink, Brandy and Cognac are most commonly enjoyed at the end of dinner as a digestif, often served neat. You can also enjoy Cognac and brandy in many popular cocktails such as the Sidecar, Brandy Sour, Brandy Alexander, Cobbler, and Classic Sazerac.