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Frankie Mcphail loves whiskey. That said, she’s currently having a rather serious affair with gin.If you've been to the Heyday brewery in Wellington at anytime over the last few months, you may have noticed a rather splendid and shiny apparatus that protrudes into the air like a giant’s saxophone. This is Southward Distilling Co., the love child of Frankie's passion for spirits that she lovingly assembled by hand in the ultimate Ikea project. Dreamt up by Frankie in her home of British Columbia after researching local distilleries, the setup speaks volumes on her take on making gin. The 300L copper pot still complete with whiskey helmet and a large basket for botanicals, all help to create a fuller, deeper distillate. She's also opted for grain spirit as a base which gives increased sweetness compared to whey spirit, and uses a process that gives her Botanicals two chances to converse with the distillate. Once in a wet run through steeping in the pot still, and then as a dry component when the distillate hits the basket. Consequently, her gins are far from simple facsimiles of the London Dry style, and can be sipped like whiskey. For Frankie, making gin is only a small part of the distilling story and opens a doorway to experimentation and opportunity. In this vein, she is bringing an understanding and respect for other drinks’ styles to her process - and the results are impressive. The Mountain and Wave Gin which we stock at Regional Wines form the core range, and epitomise her style with a lovely round mouthfeel and some serious complexity. Then there’s her experimental ‘single batch’ gins which are made in tandem with limited edition seasonal beers at Heyday. I was lucky enough to try a few, and they quickly had me hoping that one day they’d be on the shelves at Regional too.Her Smoked Rosemary Gin is an exquisite deep copper colour and takes the palate on a savoury journey - caramelised winter vegetables garnished with rosemary that evoke memories of roast lamb fresh from a wood-fire oven. On the other hand, the Blueberry Gin is all about fruit sweetness, but is made with a winemaker’s attention to detail and a deftness of touch with delicate levels of extraction and maceration. The palate is all about bright blue fruit flavours that meld harmoniously with gentle tannins in a mulled wine meets sloe gin experience. Her Grapefruit Gin is more classical, offering a spectrum of citrus pith and zest that is bottled at 50% giving it some real oomph. This is Frankie's bridge building gin through which she can craft trust in her products, after all, there’s plenty of us out there who still want a gutsy gin to which we can add some tonic.Her brand building extends further into the Wellington community through her Locals Range. These are gins made in collaboration with restaurants and producers, that to date, has seen Frankie work with Hanging Ditch and Apache, amongst others, crafting house gins they can serve off their lists. This is smart business that maximises her reach whilst allowing for further experimentation.So, exciting times at Southward with a rapidly expanding list of products and real exposure in Wellington’s food and drinks scene. So what's next? Whiskey of course, after all this is where it all began. Frankie is currently experimenting at home on a series of small stills, perfecting the wash before she takes her ambitious whiskey plans to the next stage. She’s even got some exciting Wellington sites in mind for the distillery that will certainly give the spirit a sense of place, and as with the gin, her sights are firmly set on a malt that is distinctly individual, that borrows from Scotch and bourbon without simply replicating them. It was once a toss up between moving to Scotland to pursue her dreams or setting up a distillery in Wellington - luckily for us, Frankie chose the latter. Click to purchase. Southward Distilling Co. Mountain Gin 42% - $67.99 Southward Distilling Co. Wave Gin 47$ - $72.99

As the fumes of citrus zest, star anise and ginger intermingled evocatively in the Regional Wines tasting room, a selection of six gins courtesy of  the craft distillers from Four Pillars were gently warming to room temperature. It was an act of defiance of sorts - as they would soon be combined with lashings of ice, garnish and tonic water under the guidance of James Irvine, Creative Director, and become the drinks they were always destined to be in the guise of the world’s most ordered cocktail. First up was the Rare Dry Gin, famous for its use of whole oranges and whose strong aromatics balance handsomely with the spice from cinnamon, star anise and Tasmanian pepperberry. The simple addition of a slice of orange and tonic was all that was needed to bring out its clean and concise flavours. It is Count Camillo Negroni whom we should thank for the second gin, and who in asking for his Americano to be strengthened with gin in 1919 in Florence, created the first Negroni. Designed specifically to stand up to its co-inhabitants in a decent Negroni, this Spiced Negroni Gin shows weight and fragrance through increased Tasmanian Pepperberry, cinnamon and the addition of the exotic West African spice called Grains of Paradise, a member of the ginger family famous for its pepper and citrus flavours. Next was the Navy Strength Gin - an explosively flavoured number which any seadog could rely on to light his or her gunpowder. The secret ingredient is Australian native finger lime which helps pull out the spicy Asian aromatics from coriander, star anise, turmeric and ginger. The results are sweet and juicy as well as big and spicy, offering a liquid example of the colonial and sub continental influences on gin. The final three were a masterclass in the fusion of wine and gin - and showed why Four Pillars has developed a reputation for classical gin with a modern twist. The Bloody Shiraz Gin, a compound gin or maceration of the Rare Dry Gin and Shiraz grapes from the Yarra was a blast of sweet red fruit, balanced by tannin and spice, and which drank beautifully on its own with a cube or two of ice, and also transformed into an exotic beast though the addition of Yuzu tonic, lemons and Lime. Starting life as a marketing stunt, this gin has become their most successful, and keeping up with demand is now its biggest issue. The final two gins split the room, with the Chardonnay barrel aged gin offering savoury, resinous pine like notes from its time in an Australian oak solera, and the sherry cask aged gin showing obvious similarities with sherry aged whisky; subtle toffee sweetness but again balanced by botanical spice. James demonstrated a love and knowledge that is obviously one of the secret and intangible ingredients used in the creation of the Four Pillars gins, and one feels that, in the current wave of gin enthusiasm, the story of Four Pillars has only just begun. (The two barrel aged gins are available in minuscule quantities in store at Regional Wines.)