Co-founder and Bundjalung woman Kirra Daley shows us what “doing good by Country” really means.
When we jump on a video call with Kirra Daley, proud Bundjalung woman and co-founder of Beachtree Distilling Co., she’s just found out they’ve won the coveted World’s Best Craft Producer title at the World Gin Awards in London. “Honestly, I think we’re a little lost for words!” she says with a laugh. “For us, it’s just incredible. This is our third year operating as a distillery and to be acknowledged at the same level as iconic distilleries that have come before us is amazing. It’s taken me a few days to grasp that it happened.”
But that’s not all – their Organic Tiger Quoll Vodka won World's Best Varietal Vodka at the World Vodka Awards just a month earlier, and they picked up another four medals at last year’s London Spirits Competition. On top of all that, Kirra also scored a Highly Commendable for Distillery Manager at the World Gin Awards. “So, I was basically rewarded for bossing Steve around, which I really like,” she laughs.
Steve Grace is Kirra’s partner in life and business; he’s a Kamilaroi man, Beachtree’s master distiller and a mechanical and electrical engineer whose love of building distilling equipment in his garage led to, as Kirra says, a “little First Nations distillery putting Australia on the map”. Between his engineering know-how and Kirra’s background in science, nutrition and health, plus their shared Indigenous knowledge of native ingredients and harvesting, it’s no wonder this Sunshine Coast distillery is being recognised globally.
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The beginnings of Beachtree Distilling Co.
A chance encounter online led Kirra and Steve to cross paths more than eight years ago, and they soon recognised each other’s excitement for fresh produce and native ingredients. “I had an eclectic upbringing in Bundjalung Country [the northern coastal region of New South Wales], living on a farm with an Italian mother and a Bundjalung father,” she explains. “Before Beachtree, Steve had an engineering firm. I realised early on that he had a passion for distillation and so do I because of my Italian background – I used to make wine, grappa and limoncello, as well as butter and cheeses from scratch.”
Over a couple of drinks (how fitting), Kirra and Steve decided to begin distilling commercially in 2020. But like all fledgling businesses, they faced their fair share of tests. “We batted that big C-word [COVID], we had lockdowns in December 2021 and floods in March 2022. This has been a three-year struggle,” she explains. “It hasn't been an overnight success. It’s been a long journey of our love for the country, the land, the botanicals and distillation.”
Through it all, she and Steve never lost sight of the end goal – to show what Australian ingredients can really do in the hands of skilled artisans. Kirra believes there were some other powers at play, too. “I always feel like through everything that happens on our journey, there’s a bit of ancestral guidance – like our ancestors are leading the way. There have been lots of challenges that led us to an outcome we’re incredibly proud of,” she says.
Every Beachtree product harnesses native Australian botanicals bursting with tasty flavours and vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients – botanicals that are these days often referred to as ‘superfoods’. But for thousands of years, Indigenous Australians have been using native Australian flora as part of bush tucker – and Kirra and Steve knew from the brand’s inception that those same ingredients not only had to be included but sourced from where they’re traditionally grown. “We go by providence – where it was originally grown thousands of years ago. This offers the most flavour. So, for example, our finger lime is sourced from Byron Bay and our pepperberries come from Tasmania,” explains Kirra.
Then there’s an ingredient that’s unique to both Beachtree and its Queensland home: organic sugar cane. Kirra explains that it’s kinder to the land, and it also creates a cleaner, crisper and smoother spirit while being naturally gluten-free. “Up here in Queensland, sugar cane is everywhere – Steve’s been distilling with sugar cane since he was 18. It’s something we have total control over when we're fermenting and distilling. You can’t get its flavour anywhere else in the world,” says Kirra.
Growing up, Kirra and Steve were taught ‘fresh is best’, which is why Beachtree products are all proudly organic. “You don't want anything that's covered in chemicals or pesticides, especially when you're working with native ingredients – they've been growing on their own, without chemicals, for thousands of years,” she says.
Message in a bottle
You can’t miss a Beachtree Distilling Co. bottle on the shelves at Dan’s. Each one features an intricate, hand-drawn illustration of an Australian animal and the botanicals that inspired the creation of the spirit. And each one tells a tale.
The Organic Koala Gin is their spiced-up citrus blend and best seller, featuring lemon myrtle, cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla. After the 2019 fires hit Byron Bay and destroyed vital koala corridors, the koala became endangered. “Normally koalas only sit in three or four trees and travel between a few, often needing a variety depending on the type of eucalyptus. Without those corridors and the blended trees among their habitat, they won't travel and then they starve,” Kirra explains. “I started talking to Steve about how we could educate the public on what's going on with our wildlife and community, and we thought why don’t we raise awareness about endangered animals by putting them on the bottles?”
“The quokka is on our signature gin because when we were sourcing ingredients for it, we couldn't get hibiscus. It's not an ingredient I grew up with, so I didn't have access to any farmers or growers that I knew at the time. So, I had to source it from an Indigenous mob in WA and I wanted something that represented the region,” she says. Alongside hibiscus, you’ll find elderberries, bilberries and mountain pepperberries, giving this gin a fruity front with a warm finish.
“The tiger quoll is found up most of the east coast of Australia so he now represents our sugar cane vodka,” says Kirra. And then there’s the newest addition – the Organic Skippy Gin, with a kangaroo on the bottle. Here you’ll find strawberry gum, lemon myrtle, finger lime, and Kakadu plum. It’s about as deliciously Australian as gin gets.
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From the get-go, running a sustainable business was always front of mind for Kirra and Steve. “I knew if we're going to do this, we had to do it ethically and sustainably. I grew up on a farm, and if my 90-year-old nonna can find ways of reusing things then so can we,” says Kirra. “There's no production waste in our distillery – everything is a closed-loop system. As soon as Steve realises there's a better way of making something more efficient or more effective, he’ll redesign it,” she says.
“We have an Aboriginal proverb: if you take anything from the land, you always have to give back. That's why we started the one-bottle, one-tree program: for every 500mL bottle of gin or vodka that you purchase from Beachtree Distilling Co., we plant one tree on your behalf. Our first 15,000 trees were planted down in the Byron Bay region for the koala corridor. More recently we've been working with a couple of native growers over in WA as well – and we actually just hit 20,000 trees planted!”
“I want to leave a legacy,” starts Kirra, “based on our morals and ethics that we were raised on, which is to do good by others and do good by Country.” She and Steve want to continue working directly with farmers and growers, and always hero local native ingredients and flavours. They’ve also got some exciting new products, including a spiced rum and a whisky, on the way.
And when asked about their drink of choice after a long day of distilling? “I love the Koala. Steve loves the Quokka. They both won Gold at the World Gin Awards!” says Kirra. “I love adding ginger beer or ginger ale and a little bit of finger lime to the Koala, then mixing something fruity with the Quokka, like passionfruit, pineapple or strawberries and soda for a refreshing summer cocktail.”
Their hard work is paying off – for drinkers lucky enough to enjoy their spirits, and for the community at large who benefit from the stories and knowledge Beachtree shares. Luckily, there’s plenty in it for Kirra and Steve, too: “We love it. It makes us happy. That's really all that matters in the end, isn't it? That you're doing what you love every day. So many people don't.”
