HEALESVILLE 2.0 IS OFFICIALLY OPEN!
It’s happened. The doors to Healesville 2.0 have officially been flung open and the gin is flowing through the pipes of our new bar.
It may have taken a few years and one too many Negronis, but our newly expanded home (directly adjacent to our original home on Lilydale Rd) is totally worth it.
To give you the twenty-second run down, we’ve pretty much doubled the size of our Healesville Distillery, which means we’ve got a whole lotta new space to make, drink and share gin with you. And thanks to the good folks at Breathe Architecture and Never Stop Group who helped design and build the new site, we’re now able to do these things in a more sustainable and eco-friendly way. Which is awesome.
So, in case you need any convincing to start planning your trip to Healesville, here’s a look at some of the spaces at Distillery 2.0 – both new and old – and some funky little details we’re a bit in love with.
BETH’S BAR
First up is our stunning copper bar – the centrepiece of our new hospitality area we’ve dubbed Beth’s Bar (named after our first employee, Scott Gauld’s mum). But she’s more than just a pretty sight.
Beth’s Bar has been equipped with some snazzy copper gin pipes to help us cut back on our glass bottle waste. This means our gin can now travel through the pipes, directly into the main bar for our staff to pour out and mix up your favourite gin drinks. We’ve also switched out our bottled tonics for kegged tonic. Both of these things mean we’ll be able to save around 29 tonnes of glass per year. Winner winner.
You can take your pick of seats in the bar with bar seating, high tables and banquettes all on offer.
JUDE’S GIN GARDEN
Next up is Jude’s Gin Garden (named after our co-founder, Stu’s mum).
To help bring this space to life, we planted a whole bunch of local natives and botanicals – some of which will one day be used in our very own distillations.
We’ve also propped up a stand-alone bar so we can use this space for private events too.
Between Beth’s Bar, Jude’s Gin Garden and some of our original drinking spaces, we’ve now got a capacity of about 300 guests at a time, which means (hopefully!) no more pesky queuing at the door.
It also means we’ve got plenty of space for you to slide into a booth or pull up a bar stool to enjoy one of our gin tasting paddles, some seasonal gin cocktails and a few delicious gin-inspired snacks, courtesy of our Made From Gin experts, Matt Wilkinson and Caro Gray.
WILMA’S STILLHOUSE
And now for where all of the gin-making magic happens. Wilma’s Stillhouse is home to four of our six copper CARL stills – Wilma (after Cam’s late mother), Jude (Stu’s mum), Beth (our first employee, Scott Gauld’s mum) and then Linda (mum to one of our OG Four Pillars people, Elton Pinkster).
In Wilma’s Stillhouse you’ll also find our solera of barrels we use to age our Barrel Aged Gins.
CORAL’S LOFT
Coral’s Loft is our very own private mezzanine bar, used for hosting all of our gin tastings and masterclasses. It’s also home to our special micro-still, Coral (named after our Operations Director, Michelle Hall’s mum), which we use to make gin in our Maker sessions.
NEW BOTTLING AREA
Last but in no way at all least we’ve got ourselves a shiny new gin bottling room.
It’s been a pretty big couple of years for Four Pillars, so it feels good to finally have some much-needed new production space to support our growth as champions of the Australian craft gin scene.
We also thought it would be fun for our guests to get a front row seat to the action so we have a few portholes and windows that look from Jude’s Gin Garden and Beth’s Bar down into the bottling room. Be sure to give our hardworking team a wave when you pass by!
