Top 10 Distilleries in Victoria
A decade ago Australian whisky meant Tasmania. Today the centre of gravity has shifted north across Bass Strait to Victoria, where Melbourne's bar culture, the wine regions ringing the city, and a wave of ambitious distillers have created the country's busiest craft-spirits scene. Victoria's makers do things their own way: maturing whisky in Australian red-wine and fortified casks rather than ex-bourbon, distilling gin built on native botanicals like lemon myrtle and pepperberry, and opening cellar-door tasting rooms in old warehouses and farm sheds. It helps that Melbourne sits within easy reach of five or six distinct wine regions — the Yarra Valley, the Mornington Peninsula, Geelong, the Macedon Ranges and beyond — each supplying a different flavour of cask and grape. These ten distilleries lead the Victorian scene, from the inner-city laneways to the Mornington Peninsula and the Yarra Valley.
1. Starward, Port Melbourne
Starward is the Victorian distillery that took Australian whisky global. Founder David Vitale built the brand on a single bold idea: maturing single malt entirely in seasoned Australian red-wine barrels from nearby Barossa and Yarra Valley wineries. The result — rich, fruity and approachable — won international awards and put the Port Melbourne distillery on every serious whisky map. The warehouse sits in an industrial pocket of Port Melbourne only a few kilometres from the CBD, and the warm, swinging temperatures of the un-airconditioned bond push the spirit deep into the wine-soaked oak in just a few years rather than the decade or more a Scottish climate would demand. The cellar door near the city offers tastings and tours.
2. Four Pillars, Healesville (Yarra Valley)
Four Pillars, in the Yarra Valley wine country an hour from Melbourne, is Australia's most celebrated gin distillery. Its Rare Dry Gin uses native botanicals and whole oranges, and the Bloody Shiraz Gin — steeped in local Shiraz grapes — became a national phenomenon. Founded in 2013 by Stuart Gregor, Cameron Mackenzie and Matt Jones, Four Pillars built a striking glass-walled distillery in the centre of Healesville where the copper pot stills — named Wilma, Jude and Eileen — are visible from the tasting bar. The Healesville distillery door is one of Victoria's most popular spirits destinations, an easy day trip past the wineries and the Healesville Sanctuary wildlife park.
3. Bass & Flinders, Dromana (Mornington Peninsula)
Bass & Flinders sits among the vineyards of the Mornington Peninsula, the wine region on the bay south of Melbourne. It produces gin, brandy and grape-based spirits, and runs a popular Gin Masterclass where visitors blend their own bottle. The peninsula's cool maritime climate is best known for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and Bass & Flinders draws on that grape base for its pot-distilled brandy as well as its gins. The maritime peninsula setting, less than an hour and a half from Melbourne, and the wine-country surroundings make it a classic day-trip distillery, often combined with the area's hot springs and beaches.
4. Chief's Son, Somerville (Mornington Peninsula)
Chief's Son is a family single malt distillery on the Mornington Peninsula producing full-strength, richly flavoured whisky aged in a variety of casks. The distillery favours rich, oily new-make spirit and a range of cask types, from ex-bourbon to fortified-wine barrels, often bottling at cask strength so drinkers can dilute to taste. The hands-on family operation and the bold, high-strength style have built a strong following among Australian whisky enthusiasts looking beyond the big names.
5. Melbourne Gin Company, Healesville
The Melbourne Gin Company distils a small-batch dry gin using eleven botanicals including native lemon myrtle, honey lemon myrtle and macadamia. Made in the Yarra Valley, it was one of the early Victorian craft gins and helped establish the native-botanical signature that now defines so much Australian gin. Lemon myrtle, with its intense, almost lemon-sherbet aroma, and the rich oils of locally grown macadamia give the gin a distinctly Australian sweetness alongside the classic juniper backbone.
6. Anther / Patient Wolf and the Melbourne city distillers
Melbourne's inner suburbs now host a cluster of urban distilleries. Patient Wolf in Southbank and Anther Spirits (originally Mornington) make gin and vodka in small city stills with cellar doors, part of a wave of laneway and warehouse distilleries that mirror Melbourne's craft-beer and coffee culture. These urban makers trade the cellar-door drive for inner-city convenience, putting a working still and a cocktail bar within tram distance of Flinders Street and turning gin tasting into a Friday-night activity.
7. Bakery Hill, Bayswater (Melbourne)
Bakery Hill is one of mainland Australia's pioneering single malt distilleries, founded by David Baker in the eastern Melbourne suburbs around the turn of the millennium. Producing peated and unpeated single malt long before the current boom, it is a foundational name in Victorian whisky and a benchmark for the region's mature style. Baker, a former science teacher, taught himself the craft and matured his single malt in small American oak casks, proving that mainland Australia could make serious whisky years before the rest of the country caught on.
8. Backwoods Distilling Co., Yackandandah (north-east Victoria)
Backwoods, in the historic gold-rush town of Yackandandah in the foothills of the Victorian Alps, is a family farm distillery making whisky, gin and rum. Yackandandah, a gold-rush settlement near Beechworth and Wodonga roughly three hours from Melbourne, sits in granite country whose cold winters and warm summers swing the barrels through a wide annual temperature range. The alpine north-east location, far from the coast, gives Backwoods a distinct rural-Victoria identity and a slower, more measured maturation than the warm city warehouses.
9. Loch Brewery & Distillery, Loch (South Gippsland)
In the small dairy town of Loch in South Gippsland, this combined brewery and distillery makes single malt whisky, gin and absinthe. The Gippsland green-hills setting and the brewing-and-distilling crossover give Loch a particular charm, and its absinthe is among the few authentically made in Australia.
10. Kilderkin and the surf-coast distillers, Ballarat & Geelong
West of Melbourne, the goldfields city of Ballarat and the surf-coast hub of Geelong host a growing cluster of craft distillers making gin and whisky. Kilderkin Distillery in Ballarat and the Geelong-area makers extend the Victorian scene into the volcanic plains and toward the Great Ocean Road, rounding out a state that now distils in every direction from Melbourne.
Victoria in context
Victoria has overtaken its southern neighbour as the engine room of Australian craft spirits, and it has done so by leaning into what makes the state distinctive — Melbourne's bar culture, the wine regions that supply both casks and botanicals, and a confident, experimental attitude. The wine-cask whisky of Starward and the native-botanical gins of the Yarra Valley are now studied by distillers worldwide. With cellar doors clustered within easy reach of Melbourne, Victoria is also the most accessible Australian state for a spirits-focused trip.
Explore on the map
Use the interactive map to plan a Victorian distillery tour, from the inner-city stills of Port Melbourne and Southbank out to the Yarra Valley, the Mornington Peninsula and the goldfields around Ballarat. Open the map to see how the distilleries cluster around Melbourne and the wine regions, and find Victoria on the map to build a route that pairs whisky, gin and the state's vineyards.