The long-time favourite over at Carrington, Styx Brewery, has recently joined the local gin distilling game with the launch of their off-shoot, Styx Distillery, back in 2019 and has since created numerous award-winning gins with the release of their newest product, Lutea, just this week.

Brought to us by the lovely local duo, Analee and Geoff Isbister, the brewery side of the business has been bringing delicious brews to locals since its inception back in 2018, but it was an overseas trip to the gin capital of the world, London, back 2017 where Analee’s love for gin and the Styx Distilling journey truly stated.

“I loved it so much I wanted to start making my own. Whilst setting up the brewery in 2018 Geoff bought me a small 10-litre copper pot still for my birthday,” Analee said.

April 2019 saw the brand come to life with the Styx Distillery crew working alongside Sam from Proud as Punch Studio and the incredibly talented illustrator, Liz Anelli, to showcase the suburb of Carrington with the iconic port map, bringing their first bottled goods to life; the Achilles Gin.

Since their first gin, the local business has crafted some unique gin offerings including the ever-so popular collaboration gin they completed with Yohei from Nagisa; Amato. This crowd favourite even brought home a gold from the Australian Gin Awards in 2020!

So, what’s their newest creation? The Lutea Gin in collaboration with the Hunter Botanic Gardens.

“I love foraging and am also blessed to have a great community of local people that grow botanicals and citrus for us that we use in our small distillery and brewery.

"Because of this, I wanted to find a way to give back and pay it forward and I couldn’t think of a better way to do this then to create ‘Lutea’ and support the Hunter Botanic Gardens.”

With each sale of the Lutea gin, Styx Distilling is donating 20% of the proceeds directly back to the Hunter Botanic Gardens.

The newly launched Lutea is complete with all, but the juniper botanicals collected and foraged directly from the gardens, making it a truly rare gin to enjoy. Featuring flavours from Davidson Plum, Finger Lime, Gerlaton Wax, Midgen Berry, Tea Tree, and Native Mints, this dry gin is truly magnificent.

“I spent two days with the amazing volunteers carefully foraging and collecting the botanicals that we then distilled and blended to create the gin. The Davidson Plums were collected from the forest floor before the bush turkeys and possums could eat the last of them, the rest of the botanicals were carefully hand-picked by the volunteers, being careful to only take what we thought we would use.

“It is different from any of the gins that we have released so far with its big bold heady aroma and flavours.”

The label itself is worth talking about, with the beautiful flora and fauna inspired design catching anyone’s eye. Created by local artist Lynda McPherson alongside design studio, Proud as Punch, this label might just be our favourite Styx Distillery one yet!

“One thing that we have always done from the start of the brewery and distillery is to always use local artists on our labels as much as possible. To help this happen we use Sam from Proud as Punch Studio as he takes the artists’ prints and design and turns them into labels.

“Lynda McPherson has done some amazing paintings inspired by the flora and fauna around the gardens and while we were visiting them, we noticed that Lynda had her artworks hanging in the gift shop as well as being featured on their website, so it was really the perfect collaboration.”

The name is derived from a beautiful Australian native flower, the Boronia Megatisma Lutea, which features bell shaped flowers and an incredible aroma.

“I couldn’t not be inspired to use the name Lutea! I really am drawn to using Australian botanicals that have a big aroma and are different to the normal.”

As Analee and the rest of the Styx Distillery team only sourced and foraged a small amount of botanicals from the Hunter Botanical Gardens, this means the Lutea Gin is only a small and limited release of just 100 bottles!

So, gin lovers, have we got you interested yet?

We asked Analee what her suggestions would be to consuming the Lutea gin, as usually you’re told to garnish with this, and top with this, but Analee’s number one piece of advice is to just enjoy the gin straight!

“Drink a good quality gin by itself or with a dash of soda water. So much effort goes into getting the perfect blend, you want to enjoy the flavours achieved by the distiller. If you are not a straight up sort of person, a dash of soda water is a good start. What I encourage is the pour, smell, sip method, followed by a dash of soda.”

The local distillery has big plans for the future, with a coffee collaboration on the brew at the moment and Japanese Gin 2.0 with the crew at Nagisa well and truly in the works.

What are you waiting for? Get your order in now to avoid missing out on this one-of-a-kind local gin! To purchase, click here.