When I first got acquainted with the Brix Distillery story at their first birthday party they were bemoaning the fact that while Sydney was founded on rum we weren’t known for making craft rum. As a fledgling Australian rum distillery they were butting up against the federal Excise Act (1901)—which stipulates to call something rum it needs to be aged in a barrel for at least two years—and made their initial range using imported rum from Barbados. Fast forward four years to 2023 and it was exciting to see the inroads this Sydney-based craft rum distillery has made in their quest to reinvent Australian rum.
Responding to how we generally like to drink rum, they’ve set their eyes on cocktail drinkers with their new core range ($80 RRP). The Brix Australian Cane Spirit is designed to woo the hearts of Bacardi drinkers in Daiquiris and Pina Coladas. The flagship Brix Australian Rum is aged for three years in Australian red wine casks, and will suit the Mai Tai and the Old Fashioned. The surprising Brix Australian Spiced Rum is brewed with (largely) Australian ingredients and matured in Australia in red wine barrels. While I wasn’t quite sold on the circulating pressed apple combination which I thought buried the spiced rum, I was fascinated with the neat spirit made with a quintessentially Australian set of infusions: grapefruit, mango, macadamias, lemongrass and vanilla—plus imported cinnamon from Ceylon. Unlike the darkly spiced fruitcake that so many spiced rums employ, all the bright, lifted aromas in this version suggest it is pitched right at the Australian summer. I could see myself drinking it poolside either over ice or lengthened with soda water. If that sounds too avant, simply hit up the flagship rum in an Old Fashioned: the few I tried went down very nicely on the night.
Keep your eyes peeled for these new-look bottles and labels at your local bottle-o or pick ‘em up online or at the Surry Hills distillery to be part of this Australian rum revolution 》
