The Story

The Ned Whisky story starts with Drew Fairchild, a former CFO for Cleanaway and Shell, and the founder of Top Shelf International, the now ASX-listed company responsible for the brand. Top Shelf’s investors are of a similar ilk, with the likes of Gerry Harvey, Aurizon chairman Tim Poole, and Bennelong Asset Management’s Richard Pegum and Paul Henry involved, among others. Curiously, Lark Distilling Co and Bruce Neill are also listed as investors.

The first we saw of Ned came in the form of RTD whisky and cola cans, which first appeared in January 2015. Top Shelf then released its own proper Ned Whisky bottle in late 2019. At $60 retail, it became the cheapest Australian whisky on the market, an achievement not lost on those who’d been bemoaning the high price of Australian whisky.

However, the first batch of Ned Whisky obviously couldn’t hail from the Ned Whisky Distillery in Campellfield in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, which only became operational in 2019. In fact, it was distilled by Ostra Distillers, a massive winery and distillery in Robinvale, north west Victoria. Ostra was founded in 1962, and have predominately produced wine and neutral grape spirit for fortifieds. But from 2008 under Dawid Ostrowski, they also started laying down large stocks of grain whisky and single malt for a variety of businesses, which is how they hooked up with Ned Whisky.

For the first Ned Whisky batch, Ostra wheat spirit was matured for two years in used oak and then given a further 18 months in new American oak barrels. This is very different to the whisky currently being distilled at Top Shelf’s distillery in Campellfield (maturation takes place in a separate warehouse up the road).

Sebastian Raeburn, one of Melbourne’s most respected drinks industry pros, has taken over the reins at Campbellfield to drive the project forward. He’s implemented a mixed grain mash of 71% corn, 17% wheat and 12% barley (almost identical to the Maker’s Mark mash bill) for the future of Ned Whisky.

The spirit will predominately be filled into new American oak, although the goal is to build up six to eight years of use from each barrel and use a multi-fill process recycling each barrel. Ostra have continued to supply Top Shelf with spirit, but under the new mixed grain mash bill.

300,000 litres of Ned Whisky is currently on oak, and when the second phase of the distillery comes online – a doubling of its capacity – Raeburn forecasts that 700,000 litres will be maturing in barrel by the end of 2020. Whisky from the new mash bill will also come online in the first quarter of 2021.