Distilling Starter Kit

Yes. Owning a still of any size is perfectly legal here. Producing alcohol with it, though, requires an excise manufacturer licence from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). Without a licence, stills can still be legally used for distilling water, essential oils and botanical extracts. Happy to point you toward the right ATO resources if you want to explore the licensing pathway.

For most home distillers, a 25L boiler is the sweet spot. Big enough for a worthwhile yield, small enough to fit comfortably in a shed or garage, and easy to run off a standard power point.

Yes. You ferment your sugar wash or grain mash first, then transfer it to the still for distillation. Our starter kits include a suitable fermenter, though you can upgrade to a temperature-controlled vessel, which is well worth it given Australia’s wild seasonal swings.

Absolutely. Once you’ve produced a clean neutral base, infuse it with classic botanicals or go full Aussie with native ingredients like lemon myrtle, wattle seed or pepperberry.

A typical kit includes a 25L boiler or still pot, reflux or pot still column, condenser, carbon filter system, fermenter with airlock and hydrometer, thermometer, cleaning and sanitising products, and turbo yeast with a sugar wash starter pack.

Reflux stills are designed for clean, neutral spirits like vodka and gin bases. Pot stills are better suited to flavour-rich spirits such as whisky, rum and brandy, where character and depth are the focus.

A hybrid kit can switch between reflux and pot still modes, giving you the flexibility to produce both neutral spirits and flavour-driven spirits using a single setup.

A 25L boiler is the most common starting point. It offers a practical batch size while still being manageable in a home shed or garage and compatible with standard power setups.