The Story

Sacha La Forgia, founder of 78 Degrees Distillery, caught the distilling bug as an 18 year old. School chemistry classes sparked his curiosity, and the still his family kept in the laundry satisfied it. After school he went on to study winemaking at the University of Adelaide and once finished, La Forgia travelled overseas chasing vintages in France, Germany, Canada, the United States, Chile and New Zealand before returning to Australia to start his career as a winemaker.

But his passion for the distiller’s art never left him, and a brief working holiday at a friend’s grappa distillery in Italy gave him the confidence he needed to start his own venture. With a wealth of skills but a minimal budget, he built his own still and then got to work experimenting and refining a gin recipe he’d been mulling over for years. Finally happy with the result, 78 Degrees Small Batch Gin hit the market in January 2015.

La Forgia’s first gin was only a glimpse of his larger vision. Award-winning bitter liqueurs, vermouths and apple brandies were subsequently released, all with unique Australian twists featuring native botanicals. In the background, La Forgia had also been working intensely with native grains in an attempt to create a new style of Australian whisky.

A number of experiments were conducted, with everything from spinifex to kangaroo grass. The results were mixed, but then La Forgia hit on wattleseed and weeping grass and found that small portions of these could be roasted and integrated into a barley mash, creating uniquely earthy, spicy and dark chocolate characters, similar to some American mixed grains whiskies.

The first release was the Native Grain Whisky featuring wattleseed, which came online in 2018. This was later deemed to be outside the classification for Australian whisky (wattleseed isn’t a cereal grain), so La Forgia moved on to weeping grass and released the first ‘official’ native grain whisky in May 2020.

A number of other Australian native grains are now being trialled at the current home of 78 Degrees Distillery at Lot 100. The site is a large mixed-use space, with Mismatch Brewing Co, Hills Cider Co and Vinteloper Wines producing pretty much every style of booze imaginable at the one location.

Using a pot-column still built by Kothe Distilling in the U.S., La Forgia has also been laying down casks of malt whisky at the site, and in May 2021, the 78 Degrees Australian Whiskey was released, distilled in a single shot from a mash of unmalted barley and six specialty malts. The 78 Degrees Muscat Cask Finish was then released in August 2021.

In June 2021, Mighty Craft purchased the Adelaide Hills Group of producers (those mentioned above) for $47 million. The purchase also included a 75% share in the popular Lot 100 site.

Now, the distillery has its sights set on becoming one of the most influential in the Australian whisky space, and it will be fascinating to see if other distillers follow La Forgia’s lead in trying to create uniquely Australian whiskies.