It all begins with an idea.

It was a discussion with my brother in 2017 that sparked the idea that I could go into business. We were staying at a winery for a family wedding in Tambourine for the weekend. The subject was the closed down winery that we were staying in. We couldn’t understand why this business closed especially in such a great location. I had a joke saying we should buy this place and reopen it as a whisky distillery. We didn't have money or the means to make that happen but that thought kept nagging at me over the next couple of years.

It wasn’t until early 2019 that I started researching opening my own distillery. I realised very early in the process that opening a distillery is very expensive. It can take a fair amount of waiting for the licensing. That is before you are able to think about acquiring a still. This realisation made me take a step back and put the idea back on the shelf to wait for another day.

Every now and then I would take the idea down, dust it off and research it a bit more. Asking myself how can I get this business started without having the capital to open my own premise? I looked into loans, grants I even considered asking family to help out. I kept coming up short of funds or options. That is until I came across a company based in Melbourne called Gypsy Hub who offer contract distilling and an incubator program. This was a fantastic find for me as it made me excited and saying "I can actually make this happen".

I started thinking about business names and what I would like to do. I wanted to focus on our locality with this business and create something that is fun and embodies our city. I decided to name our business Switch Distillery as it is a fun nickname for our city, Ipswich.

At first, I had my heart set on creating potato vodka and single malt whisky. After a bit more research into the market, I made the decision to create a gin as our first offering. Being true to being local, our first gin will be using Australian “bush tucker” botanicals.

For some time I have wanted to achieve financial independence to be able to spend time with family. I also want to hand something over to my children.

This is the start of our gin and distillery journey and I look forward to sharing our story from here.