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Less than three months after its launch, James Greig's (pictured) Wildflower Gin has been recognised by the Australian Gin Awards and secured a major partnership with Coles.
Greig's new gin was awarded Gold in the 'classic dry' category at the Australian Gin Awards, which is run by the Australian Distillers Association.
The founder says he was thrilled to be recognised as making one of the best gins in Australia by such a prestigious organisation.
"We originally designed our gin around something that we'd like to drink, not necessarily what we thought would be super popular," said Greig to Business News Australia.
"What I like about it is knowing that it was a blind tasting means they weren't swayed by our story or our branding or anything like that; it's just a good tasting gin."
Winning the award so early in the lifespan of Wildflower is a major coup for Greig, who operates his distillery on the Gold Coast.
The gin itself is stacked with hints of local flowers from the Gold Coast region, courtesy of the bees that make his own backyard honey which is also used in the distilling process.
The recognition comes as Wildflower recently began production of a gin & tonic ready to drink (RTD) product in a can, now the brand's second product in addition to the main bottles of gin.
It is also timely for Greig considering he recently signed a distribution partnership with Coles, which will see Wildflower stocked in liquor merchants like Liquorland, First Choice and Vintage Cellars.
But for now, only customers in Queensland and New South Wales will be able to buy Wildflower in-store.
"We're quite focussed on being a local brand and creating something locally and boutique," said Greig.
"Initially our goal is to just do a good job here."
The decision to build a distillery was a major pivot for serial-entrepreneur Greig, also a founder of software-as-a-service (Saas) web tools company Bloomtools and venue management tool iVvy.
Keen gin lovers may have to wait to get their hands on a bottle of Wildflower Gin for the time being, as COVID-19 shipping delays of the bottles they use have put a bit of a spanner in the works for Greig.
Because of those delays, and thanks to Greig's entrepreneurial mind-set, the company pivoted to producing the aforementioned RTD product.
"With no bottles we've had to be a bit creative with what we can do, and it looks like the RTD product will be here to stay with the amount of support we're getting, which is exciting," Greig said.
READ MORE: iVvy co-founder James Greig launches Wildflower Gin distillery
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