It all begins with our home in Port Melbourne, playing a pivotal role in the award-winning whisky that we create.

Our distillery is fortunate to not only experience Melbourne’s ever-changing weather, but also be within a day’s drive of some of the country’s finest ingredients. Namely, some of the best red wine barrels, from the famed wine regions like Yarra Valley, Barossa Valley and Margaret River. These are the DNA behind our signature red wine barrel maturation, which is reflected in almost all of our core range whiskies.

We also lean on Melbourne’s dynamic climate to ‘elementally mature’ our whiskies at a much faster rate than anywhere else in the world. This allows our whisky to extract those juicy red wine and oak characteristics at an increased rate.

The Process Behind Starward Whiskies

Brewing and Fermentation

It all begins with malted barley, grown in Geelong. It’s prepared the same way barley is for craft beers, allowing us to go further for flavour by capturing distinct notes of cereal and smooth malt. We use a combination of brewers' and distillers' yeast to capture our renowned tropical, fruit-forward esthers reflected in our whisky. All spent barley goes to local farms where it’s used as cattle feed.

Distillation

At this point in the process, the cleanest, purest, and most flavour-forward New Make Spirit is captured for maturation. It’s purified in copper stills that produce spirits with a rich, complex flavour. This allows more of the delicious tropical notes (pineapple, vanilla and banana) created in our fermentation process to remain in the final product.

Maturation:

We mature our whiskies in a range of different red wine barrels – shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir and merlot – sourced from the Yarra Valley, Barossa Valley and Margaret River wine regions. Our whiskies will spend anywhere between 4-8 ‘Melbourne years’ maturing in barrels. The climate and weather cycles in Melbourne mean we’re able to make the maturation process work faster than traditional cool maturation environments like Ireland and Scotland. Our four-seasons-in-a-day weather is a key part in making Starward, Starward.

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Frequently Asked Questions

1. What awards has Starward won in the past few years?

‘Most Awarded International Distillery’ at the 2024 San Francisco World Spirits Competition (SFWSC) – a title we’re proud to have won twice, first in 2022 and now again in 2024. Alongside this prestigious accolade, we also took home the largest haul of medals at this year’s competition, including 13 Double Gold medals, 8 Platinum medals, and 13 Gold medals.

2. What makes Starward’s whisky award-winning?

From red wine barrels used to mature our whisky, to grains sourced just a day’s drive away, and Melbourne’s dynamic climate shaping a unique exploration of flavour – our whisky not only wins awards, but it’s versatile, approachable and smooth. With fewer regulations around whisky crafting in Australia, our team of distillers enjoys the freedom to experiment with new barrels, ingredients, and techniques, resulting in outrageously delicious flavours.

3. What makes Starward unique compared to other Australian brands?

The secret behind our award-winning whisky? It would have to be the red wine barrels we source from Australia’s most famed wine regions, such as the Barossa Valley, Yarra Valley and Margaret River wine regions. We use an eclectic range of red wine barrels, here at Starward. Whether it’s a mix of French and American oak, puncheons or hogsheads, using a variety of high quality barrels ensures depth and complexity in our whiskies flavour profile.