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Prohibition: distillery built on a handshake just keeps growing

In the three years since mates Wes Heddles and Adam Carpenter decided to “have a crack” at making gin, Prohibition Liquor Co has won more than 20 awards and opened its own Tasting Room. And, as Heddles reveals in this podcast, they’re now looking to expand their brand further.

Jul 13, 2018, updated Jul 13, 2018
Prohibition's Adam Carpenter and Wes Heddles. Photo: Meaghan Coles

Prohibition's Adam Carpenter and Wes Heddles. Photo: Meaghan Coles

“It’s still a shock to me that there’s a product out there that represents Adam and I, and [that] people know our story,” says Heddles.

“It absolutely is unreal and some of the joy of our growth as a business has been organic, so we’ve gone from being very Prohibition mystique and [with] no brand frontage to having our own Tasting Room.”

Heddles is talking to The Message Pod‘s Nicole Haack about the story and extraordinary success of Prohibition Liquor Co, which he describes as “a hobby that’s growing really quickly”.

He says the opening of its Tasting Room in Gilbert Street at the end of last year was a big step forward for the brand – but the Prohibition team isn’t resting on its laurels.

It wants to expand the company’s reach internationally, and is currently talking to distributors in the United States as well as exploring the Canadian market.

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Heddles says there are also plans to release other spirits.

“The best piece of advice, though, that we were given from our distributor in Australia was be careful not to blur your brand, so we’ve created a fantastic gin brand and Prohibition is known as a gin brand, but if we were to release a whisky or a rum under that brand we’re just diluting what we’ve created so we’ve been very mindful of that and very cautious in how we approach our next product.”

Listen below to the full podcast interview, in which Heddles discusses how he and Carpenter built Prohibition on a handshake (and little sleep), why a bathtub has pride of place in their Tasting Room, how local distillers are working together to make SA “the gin state”, and where he sees himself in another 10 or 20 years.

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