Golds for Northern Ireland’s Ninth Wave Gin in Australia

Ninth Wave Irish Gin, a brand from Hinch Distillery in Northern Ireland, has just become the first local spirit to win a top drinks industry award in Australia.

The gin was successful in becoming the first-ever from Northern Ireland to collect gold in the Australian International Spirits Competition (AUISC) held in Sydney. The latest award follows gold won by Ninth Gin at the recent World Gin Awards in London.

Launched earlier in 2020, the competition has set an industry professional judging panel, chaired by veteran and globally respected spirits expert, Steve Beal.

Understanding that the spirits industry is a global industry, all entries were judged in their individual categories, competing in blind tastings against their international counterparts. The organisers claim this offers a true representation of the consumer’s view in market.

Michael Morris, commercial director at Hinch Distillery, says: “We are immensely excited by this important award in a market we are steadily developing. This is an important award which carries weight with Australian and international distributors and the wider public there.

“The focus of the awards is on promoting the sale of great spirits by creating demand among consumers, on-premise and off-premise channels, both in Australia and further afield.”

Ninth Wave, which is part of a growing production line at the £15 million distillery near Carryduff in county Down, was launched last year. The state-of-the-art distillery is set to open to the public this summer.

The gin is a premium product that taps into Celtic heritage and is the craft work of Belfast-born head distiller Aaron Flaherty and his team, who have a wealth of experience working for some of Ireland and the UK’s best-known spirit brands.

Ninth Wave is based on Irish mythology and is reported to be “a mystical place which lies beyond the Coast of Ireland, far out across the sea”. Said to be the home of the Irish Sea God ‘Mac Lir’, these mystical islands, known as the ‘Otherworld’, are invisible to the naked human eye, devoid of sickness and death, and a place of eternal youth and beauty. The islands are only reached by conquering the “Ninth Wave”, the greatest of all waves and the barrier that separates the Earthly world from the Otherworld.

The distillery’s other premium brand is Hinch premium Irish whiskey which has also won a series of national and international awards.