By David Russell
Most people’s idea of the perfect retirement after a long career is downsizing to a quaint cottage and putting the feet up. Maybe some extended travel for the more adventurous. Retired commercial shipping master Rowland Short had other ideas; he bought a vineyard and launched a winery and gin distillery.
Acting on a long-standing love for McLaren Vale, Rowland and wife Shelley bought a house and vineyard in the wine producing mecca.
“We suddenly had all of these grapes and it was too big a temptation… I couldn’t help myself,” Rowland told Inside South Australia.
Rowland and Shelley hired a contract winemaker, and Maximus Wines was born. Two vintages later the Shorts built their own winery and Rowland stepped into the captain’s chair, aided by a consultant. Fast forward two more years and the consultant wasn’t needed anymore. That was three years ago. Rowland’s first vintage steering the Maximus ship solo was a resounding success.
“The first vintage by myself… we (won) top tempranillo in Australia – three gold medals, two trophies and an award for being the best small batch of wine made in McLaren Vale.”
Then Rowland had an idea.
“I’m an old sea dog, so I spend a lot of time at sea… it goes without saying that I always had an appreciation of gin.
“There’s a process (in winemaking) called saignée, where on the first day of fermentation you run off some free juice from your grapes. What that does is concentrate the colour and flavour of the grapes and the wine that’s left behind. Some people turn that run off juice into rosé, we decided to turn it into gin.”
While most gins in the world are fermented from grain, fermenting from grapes produces a significantly different mouth feel. Grape spirit is also generally more aromatic and creates less ‘burn’. But that’s not what makes Settlers truly unique, according to Rowland. Settlers uses a little utilised distilling process that makes the most out of the botanicals that flavour the gin.
“In 99 per cent of distilleries botanicals are put into the still with the alcohol and it bubbles away and out comes the gin.
“We take each botanical by itself… and hang (them) in the vapour space in the still. The vapour is steam infused with the flavour of that botanical and then condensed and so we end up with a dozen containers with each of those botanicals in them separately, and then afterwards I blend it.
“It takes 12 times longer to instill the botanicals but you end up with… flavours that are bright and crisp and clearly defined.
“We (winemakers) blend all the time, dealing with separate components that make up, for example, a GSM. So its not a new proposition for me.”
In addition to juniper berries, which must be used to be able to call a spirit a gin, Rowland uses a wide variety of more exotic botanicals, including those from native plants.
“From the Coorong we have muntrie berries, which are known as native cranberries, and we have salt bush. Our sloe berries come from Tasmania. (And) our native pepper and our lemon myrtle come from the Adelaide Hills.”
Rowland makes four gins; the Rare Dry Gin, driven by aromatics; Old Tom gin, sweetened with liquorish root; Oak Aged Gin, aged in French oak and a Sloe Gin, which is turned daily for three months and picks up a redness from the sloe berries.
Settlers got its name from Rowland’s 18-year-old grandson, who suggested it to reflect the free settler history of South Australia and the Shorts own ‘settlement’ in McLaren Vale. The four Settlers gins are being sold in some of the best-known cocktail bars in Australia, as well as in independent liquor stores.
Rowland would love to export his gin overseas, but hasn’t been able to keep up with domestic demand, let alone tap into foreign markets. That is about to change. Settlers has just commissioned a new still which will quadruple their capacity. They’ve also released a gogi berry infused vodka and this weekend (1 November) will launch two liqueurs, one cherry, the other chocolate.
So how does Rowland like his gin?
“In a big bucket! (Laughs) I like a gin and tonic over ice in a long glass and I like to experiment with garnishes, because the right garnish just makes such a significant contribution to the flavour profile. We actually have got a separate label on each of our gins suggesting what we think are the best and most appropriate garnishes.”
Rowland doesn’t mind a good Martinez cocktail, either. “ It’s the reason I made an Old Tom gin, because the Martinez is made with Old Tom. It also has sweet vermouth and cherry liqueur, so that explains the reason that I’ve just created a cherry liqueur.”