An Australian distillery might evoke images of sun-drenched white beaches flecked with palms or the blistering heat of the Outback. But Starward Whisky is set along a sedate, tree-lined commercial road in Port Melbourne, the port area near Melbourne’s city center. Its freshly painted white building once housed an engineering equipment maker, but today resembles a modern art gallery, with its two giant, black-paned glass walls looking out onto the road.
Inside, the space is tall, airy, and starkly contemporary, with much of the nearly acre-sized area devoted to the distillery’s bar, which handles 300 visitors at a time. The bar leans into Melbourne’s foodie culture, offering both food and drink as well as tastings and educational masterclasses. It's connected to the distillery, whose equipment includes five fermenters, two copper pot stills, a 5,000-liter solera vat, and barrel racks. Starward also has about two acres of additional space offsite, taken by tin sheds for extra barrel storage. Overall it produces about 500,000 liters of pure alcohol (LPA) annually—small for sure, but not tiny. The company is in the process of converting the distillery to become carbon neutral by 2026, by adding a cooling tower that cuts water consumption by 300% while also reducing electricity use by 35%. Distillery tours are available, including one that allows guests to fill their own bottle from a barrel of their choice.
The Starward Style
Starward’s core range comprises three main whiskies. The entry-level expression is Two-Fold ($35) which is the only non-single malt Starward offers. The other two are the flagship Nova ($55), a single malt aged in red wine casks, and Solera ($75) the first whisky released by the brand in 2013. Alongside this trio, the distillery offers several cask-finished expressions, and a single barrel whisky called Captain’s Pick.
Starward’s whiskies have scored well, and that success can be attributed to its house style, created using a process that produces very fruity whiskies. Founder David Vitale’s background in homebrewing has left its mark: The distillery primarily makes single malt, due to the similarity between malted barley wash and beer. “Single malts are basically good craft beer, (brewed) without hops, that are distilled,” Vitale explains. Starward takes that concept to the next level, fermenting its wort with a mix of traditional distilling yeast and saison—a strain that’s commonly used by brewers. The resulting wash resembles an unhopped Belgian ale, which is then double pot distilled.
Cask selection is a key part of Starward’s method. Every expression is aged exclusively in Australian wine casks, sourced from up to 80 local winemakers. Starward likes to say that all its ingredients come from places within a day’s drive. With wine casks, that credo is a matter of practicality: Starward prefers using “very wet” casks that have just been emptied. If the casks aren’t refilled within two to three days, the Australian heat can turn any residual wine into vinegar and ruin the cask. Cask types differ from season to season, but the most common ones are cabernet, pinot, shiraz, and apera—an Australian fortified wine that resembles sherry. The casks are often uncharred, but typically feature a medium to heavy toast depending on the winery.
Each Starward expression ages for a minimum of 3 years. The liquid can be bottled as Starward’s flagship Nova single malt, or undergo additional steps to become one of the distillery’s other expressions. Select barrels are fed into the distillery’s solera system, which went into use in 2012, to be later bottled as Starward Solera. Some single malt stocks are blended with wheat-based distillate sourced from Manildra Group (and married in red wine casks) to make the distillery’s signature Two-Fold blended whisky—which is Vitale’s personal favorite. Others are finished in stout, ginger beer, or Lagavulin casks to impart even more flavor.
New Whiskies Coming
Starward has two new bottlings that should hit U.S. shelves next month: Two-Fold 90 Proof and Starward 100 Proof. The Two-Fold 90 Proof is the distillery’s Two-Fold blended whisky bottled at a higher ABV (up from 40%.) Starward 100 Proof is a 50% ABV single malt aged in American oak red wine casks. Essentially, it’s Starward Fortis—a part of the distillery’s core lineup in Australia, but one that, until now, hasn’t been available in the U.S. Both aim to appeal to American palates, which Vitale argues tends to gravitate toward higher proof points. Two-Fold 90 will be an American exclusive.
As part of its plan to become carbon neutral by 2026, Starward’s whiskies are getting a new bottle design made using 50% recycled glass. The bottles will also feature new label art, created by design firm Stranger & Stranger—which has also contributed labels to Hirsch bourbon, The Hearach scotch, and most notably Compass Box Hedonism The Muse.
How Did Starward Get Started?
David Vitale was a passionate homebrewer who had been at it for 6 years when, in 2004, he began looking for a way to leave his day job in the tech industry. Vitale toyed with the idea of starting a craft brewery, but ultimately scrapped that plan. The whisky inspiration struck during a trip to Tasmania in April 2004, where a chance visit to Lark Distillery sparked his interest in making single malt. From the start, his goal was to craft a whisky that could represent Australia on the global stage. “Good beer doesn’t travel well, and I wanted to have something from Australia that we could take to the world,” Vitale says.
Vitale needed several years to gain investment funding—things were complicated by the Great Recession of 2008-2009. But production started in January 2010. At that time, the distillery was based out of a maintenance hangar at Essendon Airport, an airfield located in the Essendon Fields suburb of Melbourne about 20 minutes away from the distillery’s current home in Port Melbourne. The space itself was modest—about half the size of Starward’s current home—but Vitale says that it was big by Australian standards at the time. “We were making about double the combined volume of Tasmania,” he claims, with Tasmania being home to Lark, Sullivans Cove, Overeem, Hellyers Road, and other popular whisky distilleries. The team largely used pre-owned equipment: brewing the wash using repurposed dairy equipment, and distilling it using a pair of secondhand copper pot stills.
The first Starward whisky was released in 2013, a single malt aged entirely in Australian apera fortified wine barrels and blended in Starward’s 5,000-liter solera vat. While many fledgling whisky distilleries often make white spirits to keep the lights on while the main product matures, Starward didn’t go that route. In hindsight, Vitale says producing a vodka or a gin would’ve been helpful. “We made it through,” he said, adding that the team was “white-knuckled” at the time. “For those two years, you know, we were probably 90 days away from insolvency at any point in time.”
Serious momentum wasn’t achieved until 2015 when Diageo-backed drinks accelerator Distill Ventures swooped in. The company—which also holds stake in Westward Whiskey, Stauning, and Kanosuke—made an undisclosed investment in Starward, which allowed the distillery to grow. The following year, Starward moved into its current spacious home in Port Melbourne. Exports to the U.S. began in September 2018, and today Starward whiskies are available at retail across 14 states (with direct shipping to 40 states).
