The Story

When you think of Australian whisky, David Vitale, founder of the New World Whisky Distillery, wants you to think Starward. From the very beginning, Vitale and his team set out to produce an approachable, distinctively Australian whisky that could compete with similar international products on price and quality. A whisky that had more in common with the top flagship whiskies from the UK, the U.S. and Japan, and less in common with the premium single cask offerings from Tasmania.

Vitale knows all about Tasmanian whisky. After leaving a career as a software developer, he completed a stint at Lark before opening the New World Whisky Distillery with founding director Chris Middleton, a former global brand director at Jack Daniel’s and the authority on Australian whisky history. But with Starward, Vitale wanted to create something different, something that could take Australian whisky out of the ‘special occasion’ cabinet and put it into the ‘sharing cabinet’, as he often says.

The price aspect of this goal can’t be underestimated. At around the same price as many flagship international malt whiskies, Starward is an affordable Australian single malt. Which is uncommon. Why is this significant? Because it’s influenced the way Starward has been designed. It’s not easy to create a quality, affordable Aussie whisky when you’re paying upwards of $80 tax on every litre of spirit you produce. So from the beginning, costs had to be managed and efficiencies found.

The first pair of stills acquired for the original New World Whisky Distillery in Essendon Fields – once an old Qantas maintenance hangar – were from the failed Joadja Creek Distillery. From them, a light and fruity spirit was produced and filled into ex-apera (sherry) casks of 50, 100 and 200 litres and the first Starward whisky released in 2013. Spirit was also filled into ex-Australian red wine barrels, mainly cabernet and shiraz from South Australia, to create the inaugural Starward Wine Cask, since renamed Nova – a release Vitale hopes will help foreground a distinctively Australian style of whisky.

While the distillery was being moved from Essendon Fields to Starward’s current, much larger home in Port Melbourne in 2016, the New World Projects were being released, allowing the team to release one-off limited bottlings, some of them seriously experimental. From whisky matured in a ginger beer cask, to genever-styled malt spirits, and even a house-style Old Fashioned bottling, the Starward team are constantly looking to innovate and experiment.

All of this would have appealed to Diageo, the world’s largest spirits company, when they were looking to invest in the Australian whisky space a few years back via their startup accelerator business Distill Ventures. In a huge moment for the industry, Distill Ventures purchased a stake in the distillery in late 2015 and signalled the potential for Australian whisky to become a player on the global stage. The New World Whisky board still maintains full control over the distillery, but the dream of taking Australian whisky to the world is now a genuine possibility. Vitale has even relocated to the U.S. with his family to drive Starward’s expansion throughout North America.

Back home, the distillery was significantly renovated and production increased again in 2020. Starward’s Two Fold Double Grain will be serviced by much of the increase, as the popular blend has quickly become the most widely available Australian whisky. The Starward core range now consists of the original Apera, Nova, Two Fold and the recently introduced Fortis. A number of limited Starward whiskies are also released each year, the Unexpeated and Starward Octave Barrels most recently.

Starward now appeals to whisky enthusiasts of all types, with their award-winning bottled cocktail range gathering serious momentum, and their insistence that drinkers get mixing and pairing with Starward malts and blends. The approach has certainly helped to launch Starward onto the international stage, and the brand is now set to lead Australian whisky’s charge into glasses across the globe.