Darwin Distilling Co is a Northern Territory distillery founded by our guest this episode of the podcast, hospitality entrepreneur Rebecca Bullen.
Originally from Victoria, Bec was lured to Darwin by the opportunity to open the city’s first wine bar, Stone House, which launched in 2016 and is still going strong today.
She subsequently opened the gin bar and restaurant Charlie’s of Darwin in January 2020, with the distillery as its centrepiece.
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Carefully avoiding encounters with snakes and crocodiles, Bec forages local botanicals to create a uniquely Territorian range of gins and vodkas, with cane spirits also in the pipeline.
I’m somewhat ashamed to say that I’ve never been Darwin, or the NT for that matter, so started by asking Bec about the appeal of living and working in this unique city.
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Opening a gin distillery in Darwin, with Rebecca Bullen: Full transcript
REBECCA BULLEN: Darwin has this magic. It is very laid back, people are very welcoming, embrace the outdoors, and you, the sunsets are just magical. And that’s why I love Darwin. And the traffic, having been here in Sydney, the traffic in Darwin is way better. Sure. Well, talk me through when the distillery was actually founded and what your thinking was there and, you know, how did you set about actually learning the craft yourself?
So 2018 is when I thought it was a great idea. I just got back from a wine tour through Europe and I hit Mr. Fogg’s Gin Tavern in London and I loved it. I thought, ooh. I really love this, you know, cocktail scene, flavours, which is what I’m really interested in. And I put in the planning permit for that.
Again, licensing was difficult. Quite a few hurdles as I was the first one. And it did take a while. So we opened in March 2020. Perfect time to open a bar. And the distillery was co located in that and in that sort of downtime that we had, so we didn’t have the lockdown for very long, we were just distilling.
So I did have a distiller there and I was more interested in the flavours of what was coming out. I’d go out foraging because I love the hyper local produce that we use. And that’s sort of really where it came. And the distiller then got another job somewhere else. And so I sort of really took over and had myself a very good time.
JAMES ATKINSON: So you, you’d sort of been pretty much learning on the job, working with the, the other distiller that you hired to get things off the ground to begin with?
REBECCA BULLEN: Absolutely. I think that if I walked into another distillery, I wouldn’t even know where to start, but I know I still back the front. So I think that’s really where it, it comes to, I’m always checking out other distilleries and go, ‘oh’ and learning because I think it’s always a learning process.
JAMES ATKINSON: What about your, you know, inspiration to kind of get into spirits and cocktails in the first place? Was that something that came through travel and so forth?
REBECCA BULLEN: So, I’ve lived in many different places and I love, I love different foods. I love wine. I love the flavours that you get from wine.
And I think that the Territory, Northern Territory had these flavours that weren’t really utilised anywhere. So, that was really my main driver is that we had these wonderful sort of melting pot of flavours and I wanted to sort of share that with the world. So, with food pairing, so we do a lot of, I call them ‘ginners’, so gin dinners that are paired with gin.
And we have an amazing chef up in Darwin. So, you know, we’ll do crocodile dumplings with a Sichuan sauce and a pink gin. It’s pretty delicious. Well, let’s talk about some of the products. So the, the Signature Gin. very much speaks of the place with the Kakadu plum and native lemongrass and water lilies.
JAMES ATKINSON: How did you kind of get your hands on those ingredients and how did you settle on that flavour profile?
REBECCA BULLEN: It was a collaborative approach. It was a group of us got together. We individually distilled the different flavours because they don’t obviously come online all at once. So it’s a blend.
A group of us got together and it’s like, well, what signifies Darwin? So the Kakadu plum I pick off my friend’s block down at Dundee Beach and we love that flavour. The boys picked the water lilies in the first instance off a billabong at their community by throwing a log into the billabong to scare away any potential crocodiles that were there.
And the native lemongrass is just something that gives a lovely citrus pop to the flavours of what people like in their gin.
JAMES ATKINSON: They’re all foraged ingredients?
REBECCA BULLEN: Yep. So I don’t pick the native lemongrass. I just go around to their house, eat dinner and collect the lemongrass. So I don’t pick that myself.
But the Kakadu plums, it’s a very short season, third year in a row I’ve been picking them. I know which tree gives me the best tasting plums. So we have a picking permit that we need to do it, and in the NT it is called a ‘Permit to take and interfere with wildlife’. So it’s what I’m allowed to take, but they must be off the tree.
So you can’t climb up the tree. You can’t shake the tree. It must be what’s on the ground. So at least one time every year, I go to my friend’s place and pick the Kakadu plum. Water lilies are, are an interesting one. So this season we got them off Finnis River in an airboat with some secateurs because you’re not allowed to lean over the airboat just in case the crocodile takes off your arm.
So that’s what we deal with when we’re picking.
JAMES ATKINSON: Uniquely Territorian is your slogan, I think. So it sounds very appropriate.
REBECCA BULLEN: Yeah, so I was out picking some mulberries on Thursday, well going to pick some mulberries on Thursday and unfortunately there was a fresh shedded snake skin and I decided that the snake could keep the mulberries for now.
So, and I was hoping it was a carpet python, but it was actually a brown snake. So I just thought, yeah, hopefully the mulberries are there when I get back and have sturdier shoes on.
JAMES ATKINSON: For sure. And what sort of flavour profile did that arrive at with the Signature Gin, like where did it land in terms of, would it fit broadly into London dry gin or sort of some contemporary kind of category?
REBECCA BULLEN: It’s definitely modern Australian. It is a really showcase of different botanicals that you may not be familiar with. It is not overtly juniper forward and it all depends on what you garnish it with or how cold it is to what flavour profile comes out first. So, you know, if it’s nice and chilled, then it’s lemongrass.
It really hits. If it’s a little bit warmer, and you pair it with the right sort of garnish or tonic, then that water lily really comes to the fore. Kakadu plum, because not many people are familiar with it, that it doesn’t translate all together in the fact that they don’t know what it is, but it is definitely there, and it is on that sort of front palette, and it gives it a bit of a length to it, and sort of embraces the juniper as well.
JAMES ATKINSON: And from the outset, it’s always been gin, gin, gin. That’s going to be the champion spirit for the distillery. Do you say that we’re exclusively a gin distillery or?
REBECCA BULLEN: No, we make some delicious single plant, essentially vodkas. So, that we use in our cocktails, such as paperbark, turkey bush, a local passionfruit that we put in our slushing machines to make something really delicious.
Just finished off a honey mead and we’re working on a spiced rum. It might never become rum because we keep tasting and it’s delicious.
JAMES ATKINSON: So it might just be a spiced cane spirit or?
REBECCA BULLEN: Yeah. So we have been working with local farmers to do a cane spirit. It’s because we grow sugarcane in, in Darwin.
JAMES ATKINSON: Oh, cool. How exciting. And is it a reasonably small scale operation? What are your main sales channels? Is it mainly kind of through the bar or?
REBECCA BULLEN: Oh, obviously a lot through the bar. People are really interested about sort of local produce coming to Darwin, especially for the tourists. We’re in quite a lot of different venues around the NT.
I think it is a unique flavour profile, like for example, Salty Plum, which was Sydney’s favourite, was this Salty Plum, which is a NT speciality, which is slightly sweet, slightly sour. So we just ship that across Australia. We’re not in any national distribution and we love people to come and visit us as well.
But I also do excursions. Exclusive blends for different parties, such as like the army or the, the navy, and so we do some signature blends for them.
JAMES ATKINSON: Yeah, so tell me a bit more about the Salty Plum, like the flavour profile of that. It’s got quite a distinctive front label, the sort of facial expression that you get when you’re biting into something that’s intensely sour.
REBECCA BULLEN: That is exactly what it is. So that is from a local artist Franck Gohier and he has licensed us that work to use. It is slightly sour. It’s slightly salty. The umami sort of flavours is sort of something that comes to the fore. It’s got ginger and it’s got, you know, and when we’re talking about hyper local, we know exactly where the ginger’s grown.
So apart from the juniper and any other traditional, the ginger’s from Mick’s, the lime’s from Phil’s. Also, Pam gives us some of her limes as well. So you know, different citruses are coming from different places and I know exactly where they come from.
JAMES ATKINSON: And has the distillery and what you’re doing with all the local ingredients, has that kind of captured people’s imagination up there?
REBECCA BULLEN: I like to think so, yes. It’s a little bit of fun. The bartenders in Darwin are very creative and they do a lot of work in Australia to educate and we’re represented very well for such a small little town that we are and bartenders really embrace what we’ve got going and sometimes they’ll ask me to craft something particular that they want to put into a drink and we’re absolutely happy to do that.
JAMES ATKINSON: It does sound like there is quite a good little bar scene up there because I have heard about a few of the different bars.
REBECCA BULLEN: yeah, we hit pretty hard for a small little village that we are, and we fully embrace that. And we do get the support from various sort of multinationals, but also, you know, they also are very good at supporting local as well.
JAMES ATKINSON: Fantastic. Yeah, and it looks like you’ve created some other interesting gins for particular local events like one which I. would be all on board for the Darwin International Laksa Festival.
REBECCA BULLEN: So, Laksa is Darwin’s dish. We do have that international Laksa Festival and I missed my Saturday Laksa and so I was asking for advice of where to go to get a good Laksa here in Sydney.
But I’m pretty, pretty happy with my one up in Darwin. So the chef came on board and said, right, we’ll do a Laksa. So we put that in the still. put a bit of juniper with it, so an actual laksa paste and the juniper and we created the spirit of laksa. And it’s come up nicely. If you love laksa, it is laksa amazing.
And we serve it at the bar as in a bloody Mary.
JAMES ATKINSON: What about, you know, are there any challenges with being a bit more isolated and in terms of access to ingredients, you know, ability, I guess, to network with other fellow distillers, those types of things?
REBECCA BULLEN: No, the fellow distillers, I think we’re a great cohesive group. So that’s never a problem. And we do get together at least once a year, but I’m very happy to pick up the phone and ask questions. What the problem could be is that freight, freight’s always an issue and it comes down to cost. You won’t see what is happening at different bars if you’re not sort of on point or not looking into your social media to see what is trending.
And, you know, for us, it’s actually quicker to go to Singapore where my gin is at the Atlas bar versus coming to Sydney. So sometimes we face a lot north rather than looking down south.
JAMES ATKINSON: Do you do any export as well or?
REBECCA BULLEN: So, yep, we export and looking to go to the US with one of our gins.
JAMES ATKINSON: Awesome. The other four distilleries that are in the Territory, are they all in Darwin, or are they around the place? They’re all in Darwin. One’s just doing a vodka one is looking at doing whisky, and the other one is this contract where they fly someone up to distil. Yeah. And the other one does it for his restaurant.
JAMES ATKINSON: And there is a ‘Darwin Craft Gin’, I think, as well. But is that not made up there? So is that controversial?
REBECCA BULLEN: It is made up there now.
JAMES ATKINSON: Oh, it is made up there now. Okay.
REBECCA BULLEN: Yeah. So that’s from a large group that does like Bondi Gin, Perth Gin.
JAMES ATKINSON: Has that created any confusion in the marketplace for you?
REBECCA BULLEN: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Especially when they weren’t making it in Darwin. I thought the sort of geographical indicators, I thought that wasn’t a great. Thing for the, the territory. Lots of people think the Green Ant Gin by the Motlops is a Darwin gin. And the green ants are from the NT and he’s a Larrakia man, but it isn’t made in the NT. So, I love to promote what’s made in the NT and we have this wonderful produce. And because it is a melting pot, you know. Lao, Filipino, Vietnamese, so things that people have never heard of or have never seen and definitely I haven’t seen coming from Victoria, like something called chocolate pudding fruit that if it’s not ripe will kill you, but when it’s ripe it tastes like, you know, a lovely sort of light airy chocolate pudding.
So these flavours that while they’re not native to the NT, they’ve been introduced, but just thrive. They’re just really fun to play with.
JAMES ATKINSON: Yeah. I mean, it’s really interesting even hearing you say that laksa is the, you know, the dish of Darwin. I didn’t know that was the case, but certainly sounds like some interesting cultural influences up there.
REBECCA BULLEN: Yeah. So, you know magpie geese, which is a bird, we do it with a curry wrap. It’s like this whole mix of delicious cuisines. And I think everyone sort of tends to get along well with each other. So it is a sharing, you know, satays is also like, everyone looks forward to it. We also have a very large Greek community.
So I believe we have the largest in the Southern Hemisphere charcoal grill for GleNTia Festival. So there’s lots of things and it is that melting pot and the sharing of cuisine and food and growing your own because you know, nearly every year we get cut off from down south. So if the train line doesn’t go through or the truck, there’s a road accident and the truck is blocked off for two days, we’re not getting anything.
So there’s been days where you can’t get potatoes or green vegetables unless it’s locally grown. So there is those, those definite challenges that sort of really make you look at what else you can do. We do have wonderful seafood. So our barra and our snapper, great prawns. So, you know, we embrace those flavours. We make it our own.
JAMES ATKINSON: Sounds like I’ve got to find an excuse to come up.
REBECCA BULLEN: Well, we invite you, come on up and have a look.
JAMES ATKINSON: Now you’ve obviously been in Sydney this weekend at Junipalooza. Tell me about the sort of reception that you got from the punters for the concept of Darwin Distilling and the products that you had to show people.
REBECCA BULLEN: So, I’ve decided that all gin festivals should be on when it’s really hot outside, so people are extra thirsty. So they were really enamoured by our Salty Plum, and they can understand why our Tropical Monsoon is highly refreshing, they’re highly appreciative of us coming from Darwin. It is a big effort.
We had to truck our goods down, didn’t make the truck, so we had to fly it instead. And they were just really sort of embracing that. We were lucky to [be on] Garden Street gin subscription, so some of them are quite familiar with our brand already. And we introduced them to some of our other delicious flavours.
JAMES ATKINSON: Oh, so some people had had your gins previously through through Garden Street.
REBECCA BULLEN: Correct. So that was a bit of fun.
JAMES ATKINSON: Yeah, absolutely. There’s also a new Navy Strength on the market. Tell me about some of the ingredients that are in that one.
REBECCA BULLEN: So all foraged locally, we’re talking about paperbark, silverleaf, tea tree. We have turkey bush, which is only grown in the NT. So really concentrating on those local flavours to give it a really dry hit. I designed it for myself so that I could have it in a dirty martini. So definitely for me. There’s malaluca. So [inaudible] leaf that comes off a community, Seven Emu Station.
And we do work with various other farmers and gardeners around. I go out foraging with a botanist. He makes sure that I don’t poison myself because I did try and eat some poisonous bush, but he was lucky he was there. I’m just really embracing those Uniquely Territorian ingredients. I am starting to grow my own native bush garden so that I can make sure that it is available for when I need to use it.
JAMES ATKINSON: And, you know, you’re obviously working with some ingredients there that are probably not particularly well understood. And, you know, there’s, there’s no sort of textbook to reach for when you’re working out, you know, how to work with them. So is that just a case of trial and error with different distillation regimes to try and get the outcomes?
REBECCA BULLEN: And then obviously some very complex blending workshops that go on after that. It is always. So much fun when I get a new ingredient to distil, like we look at whether we macerate, post-macerate, distil within the still or just in the botanic basket. And I’m lucky enough that generally we have a lot to play with so we can try them all out.
We can have a look at. Is it friends with juniper? Is it friends with coriander? Because we individually distil most of our botanicals at once, we’re able to then play around with it. And then we have gin blending classes up in Darwin so that people can come and try and blend their own. So I get to sneakily taste their good their good blends as well. So that’s a bit of fun.
But having owned a wine bar for over 13 years and, you know, looked into that, studied wine, studied flavours. I’ve got a fairly good indication of what it will taste like coming out of the still. I have been shocked a few times. There was something called Beach Vitex that when it came out of the still, I thought I’d stuffed something up because it actually tasted like salted caramel.
And I was like, oh, what have I done wrong? No, time and time again, every time I distil it, it tastes like salted caramel. It’s amazing.
JAMES ATKINSON: Yeah, I was going to say that doesn’t sound like I thought you’re going to say something horrible but salted caramel sounds like something you can work with.
REBECCA BULLEN: Yes. So definitely I’ve worked with that quite a lot with some people come to our gin blending classes and they’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t like gin’. It’s like, that’s okay. We don’t have to make gin here. Have, have a taste of this. And they go, can I just have a whole bottle of this Beach Vitex? I’m going, yes, yes you can. So some definite sort of surprises like that and they’re wonderful little surprises. I have a 50-litre and a 500-litre still. And the 50-litre still does get a massive workout because, you know, I’m always playing with ingredients.
You know, I got some boab nuts the other day and, you know, when you eat them, they taste like lemon sherbet. And I was like, how do I do this in the distillation process? But I was given so many, I could distil, I could macerate, And it’s, it’s really come out. And they’re the things that excite me.
So now I’ve got this wonderful flavour and I’m like, well, what are we going to do with this now? How can I showcase this, this product that I haven’t seen in many other distilleries? How can we showcase this and bring this to the world and in these different flavours? And that’s what I get super passionate about.
JAMES ATKINSON: So it’s a real kind of what I’m getting a real artisan sort of culinary approach to distilling.
REBECCA BULLEN: Absolutely. So the flavours and how that they can pair with each other and also how they can showcase themselves. Like this lemony sherbet, like, well, what cocktail we’re going to put it in? So, you know, I have a team of ten bartenders, we’ll get together, I’ll present them this whole new exciting thing that I’ve just distilled.
And they’re like, ‘great. What can we do with this?’ And we play around with it. It has been disappointing when I got off a community, this delicious native cherry. And we couldn’t work out what it was exactly. So we had to go to the herbarium and find out exactly what it was. And they could only give me this very small amount because as soon as I distilled it, I called up and said, ‘hi, can I get some more?’
And they were like, ‘no, season’s done’. So I was like, ‘no!’ So I’ve been jealously guarding this native cherry. And then I was like, in my diary, ‘okay, the season’s coming up, the season’s coming up…Hi!’ Nope, it’s flooded. There’s none this year.
JAMES ATKINSON: So a lot of these ingredients are very fleeting or volatile to work with.
REBECCA BULLEN: Absolutely. Yeah. But that drives me, you know, to go out, go out bush and network with the NT farmers and also different communities and to find out what is, what is out there. And anything that I can do to help sort of commercialise bush food as well is something that we’re really passionate about because, you know, Kakadu plum has massively grown, but if we can find the next one.
And there is one that I would love if they could commercially grow it would be amazing. Because I suppose you get consistency of supply, but also a more reliable product as well. When it comes to keeping people on the land, on country, and they’re able to grow and have it as a commercially viable product, then that’s a win win all around, you know.
And while it might not be able to go to the markets as fresh produce, then potentially it could go as frozen or dried. You know, we know some great chefs out there who are really curious and want to explore what’s available in the NT and I sort of find it a privilege that I get to have a look at these and sort of share those in a distilled form.
JAMES ATKINSON: What would you say are some of your signature cocktails showcasing your spirits that are, you know, really sort of designed for the Darwin sort of way of life, if you know what I mean?
REBECCA BULLEN: Ah, the Darwin way of life is this very relaxed, casual approach. Salty plum is something that a lot of people grew up with.
And you either love them or hate them. They used to be in the school canteen. So, and that only just changed not very recently so very recently. But you can get salty plums at the servo. So, you know, it’s like people go, what are salty plums? If you know, you know. So we just do that in a gin fizz.
Especially with new flavours, we want people to try them. So we don’t want to go too adventurous, like too molecular. But. we also want to introduce them to flavours. So for something like Kakadu Plum, we do it in a margarita. So that they’re somewhat familiar and a nice introduction to that flavour, which is very helpful.
I like our Paperbark Reviver, which is a riff on the Corpse Reviver. There are some like Tea Tree, anything, you know, that’s a little bit different and we want to sort of push them and push them a little bit harder and, and, but it’s in a way that they will embrace it. Is something like we can do some smoking of paperbark or the tea tree leaves.
So, so those aromatics are there and then, and then sort of go, ‘oh, this is what that flavour is’. And sort of help them in that way. So we’re quite sustainable in the distillery. So anything that comes into the distillery goes to our kitchen and the chef makes his magic there in one way or the other. So that makes me particularly happy.
JAMES ATKINSON: Awesome. What does the future hold? Grand plans to expand?
REBECCA BULLEN: Yes we’re looking at a spiced rum, which we’ll be using again, sort of spices from the NT, and we are introducing what I call the bartender series of vodkas that people can play with, such as the paperbark, turkey bush, pearl shell, so that they can play around with their own world and pair it with their own foods which is a lot of fun.
JAMES ATKINSON: Fantastic. Well, where can people get their hands on your wares?
REBECCA BULLEN: Online is the best way. Or better yet, come to Darwin and come and visit me and we’ll have a play in the distillery.
JAMES ATKINSON: Sounds good to me.
REBECCA BULLEN: So online is darwindistilling.com.au.
JAMES ATKINSON: Fantastic. Well, Rebecca, thanks heaps for coming to see me while you’re in Sydney and I’ll have to try and return the favour.
REBECCA BULLEN: All right, James, come on up. We’ll take you out and we’ll go foraging. It’ll be great.
JAMES ATKINSON: Fantastic.