In 2013, Cameron Mackenzie, Stuart Gregor and Matt Jones ordered a copper still from a manufacturer called CARL in Stuttgart, Germany. They waited almost a year for it to arrive. When it did, they named it Wilma, after Cameron's late mother, and started making gin.
They called themselves, with characteristic Australian directness, a thinker, a tinker, and a drinker. Cameron was the head distiller, formerly a winemaker in the Yarra Valley and, not irrelevantly, an Olympic relay runner who represented Australia at Atlanta in 1996. Stuart ran communications. Matt had strategy. Together they had a very specific idea: make a world-class gin that was unmistakably Australian, without leaning on any of the clichés that usually followed that phrase.
In 2015 they moved into a former timber yard in Healesville, in Victoria's Yarra Valley, about an hour from Melbourne. They opened the doors. The queues started and didn't really stop.
What They Built
Six years after Wilma's first batch, Four Pillars was named International Gin Producer of the Year at the IWSC in London in 2019, the first Australian producer to ever win an International Producer of the Year title at that competition.
They won again in 2020. And again in 2023, making Four Pillars the first gin producer in history to claim the title three times.
Today the timber yard has been expanded, twice, into a $7 million gin destination that includes a tasting room, cocktail bar, gin garden, tuck shop and events space, and welcomes over 200,000 visitors a year. Wilma has been joined by five sister stills: Jude, Eileen, Beth, Coral and Linda, all named after the mothers of the founders and long-standing team members. Four Pillars achieved carbon neutral certification in 2022, the first gin distillery in Australia to do so.
In 2019, they sold 50% of the business to Lion. In 2023, the remaining 50%. All three founders remain deeply involved with the brand.
What Makes the Gin Different
Four Pillars made a deliberate decision from the start: they were not making London Dry. As Cameron put it, that wasn't because there's anything wrong with London Dry — he drinks it. They simply wanted something more contemporary, more Australian, more aromatic.
The key ingredient in Rare Dry Gin, the expression that started everything, is fresh organic oranges. Not dried peel. Not extract. Whole oranges, cut in half and stacked in the still alongside lemon myrtle, Tasmanian pepperberry, green cardamom, star anise, lavender and cassia. The result is citrus-forward, bright, and distinctly Australian without being kitsch about it.
That philosophy; find an Australian ingredient that does something a European ingredient can't, then use it properly, runs through every bottle they've made.
The Range
Rare Dry Gin — The original. Double gold, San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Whole fresh organic oranges, lemon myrtle, Tasmanian pepperberry, green cardamom, star anise. Citrus-driven and endlessly drinkable.
Olive Leaf Gin — Made with olive leaf tea and olive oil. Savoury, textural, and bright. For people who find most gins too sweet.
Fresh Yuzu Gin — Yuzu, finger lime, ginger, turmeric and Japanese sencha genmaicha green tea. Began as a collaboration with Melbourne Japanese restaurant Kisumé, and the flavour profile was compelling enough to become permanent.
Bloody Shiraz Gin — The accidental icon. In 2015, Cameron steeped cool-climate Yarra Valley Shiraz grapes in high-proof Rare Dry for eight weeks. No added sugar. It turns pink in soda. It created its own category in international competitions. A decision made without asking too many people's permission first.
Barrel Aged Gin & Sherry Cask Gin — Two takes on what happens when gin meets oak seriously. Sippable, rounded, and closer to something you'd pour neat.
Spice Trade Gin — Made with Stranger & Sons, the celebrated Goa-based distillery. Ginger, cardamom, red chilli, turmeric and finger lime. Warm and complex.
How Four Pillars Became Collectible
The collector shelf started, as most good things do, almost accidentally.
The Bloody Shiraz was originally a cellar door experiment. When it sold out, people wanted more. When they couldn't get more, they held onto their empty bottles. When the next vintage arrived, they bought two. The annual vintage bottling, each reflecting the character of that year's Yarra Valley fruit, became something people tracked and compared.
Then came the limited edition collaborations. Four Pillars has made gin in Spain, Sweden, Japan, India and the UK with distilleries including Hernö, Kyoto Distillery, Stranger & Sons, and Santamaría. Every collaboration brought a new audience. Every new audience became a collector.
Then came the Christmas Gins. The first one was an experiment: Cameron put a traditional Christmas plum pudding into the still's botanical basket and distilled gin over the top of it. It worked. Five years of Christmas Gins; 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, now sit in collections as snapshots of a distillery finding its range, one festive experiment at a time.
At AlcVol we stock the full picture: core gins, collector editions, vintage bottlings, and collaborations that rarely stay in stock for long.
Why the Bottles Get Kept
Gin bottles usually get recycled. Four Pillars bottles get displayed.
Some of it is the design, the labels are consistently beautiful, and the limited editions often feature Australian artists and collaborators. Some of it is the stories attached; you can't look at the QF100 without knowing that Cameron flew to Longreach to forage the lemongrass personally. You can't hold a 2019 Christmas Gin without knowing it's one of a finite number of bottles that exist in the world.
But mostly it's because the gin inside is good enough to make you want to remember where you were when you opened it. That's not marketing. That's craft.