Tilba Distilling Co was created on the back of the phenomenal success of our own in-house rhubarb-infused ‘Drom Gin’.

Back in 2018 we infused some dry gin with some delicious, sweet rhubarb grown locally near Corunna Lake and started to sell it in our pub, the Dromedary Hotel in Central Tilba. Our ‘Drom Gin’ was a runaway success and we soon couldn’t keep pace with demand. Since it was ‘just for us’, we also couldn’t sell it in bottles to the many people asking if they could take some home with them!

In 2022, at the famous Tilba Festival we met Cat and Ben Coathup, of the recently established Pambula-based Nine Circles Distillery. Their passion for making great quality gin using Australian and locally-sourced ingredients was soon clear, and we realised we’d met some like-minded individuals.

We challenged Distiller Ben to think about how he could recreate and improve our rhubarb gin, while continuing to source local fruit from small scale local growers. First, Ben created a delicious base Australian Dry Gin just for us, using several traditional ingredients and adding Australian botanicals including Tasmanian pepperberry, saltbush and strawberry gum as well as green cardamom.

Unlike many flavoured gins, which use a fruit concentrate purchased elsewhere, Ben and Cat then created from scratch a rhubarb sugar syrup using richly coloured, sweetly flavoured rhubarb sourced from growers with smallholdings in towns and villages around the NSW South Coast. This special syrup is added to the gin to create that distinctive fruity/spicy flavour.