This is a unique and limited edition Starward single malt. On the nose, rich, full-bodied expression. Red fruit, raisins, ripe peach, caramel and toasty oak. On the palate, viscous and long, dark forest fruits, and a toasted oak backbone. Toasted marshmallow on the finish.
- Distillery: New World Whisky Distillery
- Type: Single Malt Whisky
- Region: Melbourne, Australia
- Alcohol: 48%
- Volume: 700ml
- Goes with: Neat or over ice
A modern Australian whisky, shaped by an icon of Australian red wine. Starward aged Octave Barrels in Yalumba’s iconic The Octavius Shiraz barrels. It’s a single malt where raisin, anise and caramel flavours meld with rich, dark fruits. It took some of the world’s oldest Shiraz plantings, Australia’s oldest family-owned winery and Starward’s progressive red-wine-barrel maturation to make this distinctly Australian single malt. When a whisky speaks to Australia’s wine heritage – and Australia’s whisky future – you know it’ll be delicious. Especially when it brings the bold flavours you’d expect from Barossa Shiraz barrel maturation. Think Barossa Shiraz, and you may well think Yalumba’s The Octavius. This iconic Australian Shiraz is the world’s only red wine aged in 100L octave-sized barrels. Once The Octavius was bottled, freshly emptied barrels were sent to Port Melbourne and filled with Starward’s signature single malt. These American oak barrels aged the whisky more intensely. The smaller volume created more wood-whisky interaction, allowing this single malt to soak up more celebrated The Octavius Shiraz characteristics as it fully matured.
Melbourne’s own David Vitale was inspired to create a spirit that reflected his hometown’s famed ‘four seasons in a day’ temperature swings and captured the production values and craft of a city surrounded by some of Australia’s leading wine regions and regarded as the microbrewing capital of Australia.
The brand currently works out of a purpose-built distillery in Melbourne’s Docklands Precinct, which was established in 2016. This move allowed Starward to double its capacity to 50,000 nine-litre cases annually. The distillery also features on-site maturation warehouses and state-of-the-art visitor facilities including a bar.
The tools and ingredients to create an authentically Australian whisky include barley sourced from between Hunter Valley in Northern Sydney and the Adelaide Hills and apera and red wine casks from Victoria to mature the whisky. The distillery refers to the amount of time a whisky spends in cask as ‘Melbourne years’, which refers to the phenomenon that occurs when whisky is aged in a warmer climate, which affects the maturation process and has the apparent influence of accelerating it.
Starward continue to create affordable, approachable and modern whisky with a uniquely Australian character.