Tasmanian gins bag swag of medals in national awards

Tasmania's craft distilleries have won a swag of medals at the inaugural Australian Gin Awards in Sydney.

Tasmanian distilleries won three gold, seven silver and 12 bronze medals.

Darby-Norris Distillery at Kelso on the Tamar River won gold in the best contemporary gin category.

Jeff Darby who jointly owns the distillery with his wife Liane, daughter Paige Norris and son-in-law Phil Norris, said he knew the gin was good.

"I'm chuffed, we only started producing last October so that makes it an even better achievement," Mr Darby said.

"It was our first competition and we only entered the one bottle."

He said the gold medal winning gin was perfect after a hard day's work and "relaxes you straight away".

Hunnington Distillery at Kettering won gold for the best gin in the flavoured gin category for its Deadmans Point Tasmanian Sloe Gin.

Hellfire Bluff Distillery based at Boomer Bay in south east Tasmania also won gold.

Hunnington co-owner David Hunn said it was "an amazing result, and a real credit to the industry in Tasmania".

“What is really impressive is the quality of Tasmanian products and the diversity of distillers and distilleries in our industry.

"We have small family run businesses like ours through to big new multi-million dollar distilleries.

"We have fantastic medal winning women distillers, people like me, nearing their sixties, and older, just starting out, and amazing young distillers whose energy and passion is an inspiration to see.”

Chairman of the nine member judging panel, Bill Lark, said the judges were overwhelmed by the quality of the 173 entries that were received.

He said the judging panel was made up of distillers of considerable experience and some of the leading bar and trade people on the Australian gin scene.

“In the words of one of the most experienced long time judges, Steve Beale, who said ‘as judges we are not policemen of the industry, our job is to look for spirits that will shine with the consumer’ as at the end of the day they are the ultimate judge.” Mr Lark said.

Fourteen Tasmanian distilleries entered the awards that were announced in Sydney on Thursday night.