From sixteen square metres in Adelaide to the top of Chalk Hill.

Never Never Distilling Co. was started in 2016 by three friends, George Georgiadis, Tim Boast and Sean Baxter, who began distilling gin in a shed in Adelaide, according to the announcement Asahi Beverages published on 1 May 2024. The Adelaide magazine CityMag reported in February 2020 that the brand launched in 2017 from a space of just 16 square metres at the Big Shed Brewing facility, and Australian Bartender placed that first site in the suburb of Royal Park. Georgiadis became the company’s managing director, and CityMag named Boast as the distiller.

The early years were improvised. Startup Daily reported in August 2025 that the Royal Park shed had no running water and no bottling line, that the team filled 500-millilitre bottles by hand and delivered them themselves, and that Georgiadis had left a career in finance and Boast a job at a bank to make it work.

Everything grew out of one recipe. Australian Bartender reported in April 2020 that the first release was Triple Juniper Gin, launched in 2017 after eight months of development, and that each later gin built on it. A juniper-heavy line followed: Juniper Freak, launched at the Junipalooza gin festival in 2017, and Southern Strength, a higher-strength gin.

Southern Strength gave the company its first international headline. The World Gin Awards list Never Never Distilling Co.’s Southern Strength Gin as the World’s Best Classic Gin of 2019, with a judges’ note describing pine leaves and resin, a hint of thyme and a whisper of cinnamon and tree bark. Drinks Trade reported in February 2019 that the result was announced in London, quoted Baxter as saying the gin was made with bartenders in mind, its higher strength suiting cocktails, and quoted Georgiadis comparing the win with what a world’s best whisky title had done for Tasmania’s Sullivans Cove.

A label that draws the region, and gins that taste of it.

The label is a picture of a place. CityMag reported in February 2020 that the Never Never gin label was designed by the studio Peculiar Familia and illustrated by Kerri Wright, and Australian Bartender wrote in April 2020 that its main illustration depicts McLaren Vale, a choice the founders said was made at the label’s design stage.

Later gins took that sense of place into the bottle. Time Out reported in May 2020 on Ginache: Triple Juniper Gin combined with grenache wine from grapes picked at Chalk Hill’s Slate Creek vineyard in McLaren Vale, released in a run of fewer than 2,500 bottles. Time Out described how its colour shifts from deep burgundy to a luminous watermelon pink when a clear mixer is added.

In November 2021 Time Out reported on Oyster Shell Gin, made with Kangaroo Island oyster shells alongside saltbush, Tasmanian wakame and native coastal daisy, as a collaboration with the Melbourne restaurant Society. Asahi’s 2024 announcement named Triple Juniper, Oyster Shell and Ginache as the brand’s three leading gins. Bartenders shaped the packaging too: Startup Daily reported in 2025 that a new label and a 700-millilitre bottle followed their feedback.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all Australian gin and craft-spirits names: Archie Rose, Never Never, Brookie’s, Manly Spirits, Ink Gin, Poor Toms and Applewood. They sit at different points in the trade, from small distilleries that still carry a founder’s name or a home town to brands that have taken outside investment or now belong to larger drinks companies, and a single gin can be sold at a cellar door, in a bottle shop and over a cocktail bar.

A gin’s identity is usually carried less by the liquid than by a bottle, a label, a name and the place it promises, and in Australian gin that place is often spelled out through native botanicals and a named region or suburb. The company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its distilling or grown far beyond the shed or warehouse where it started, which makes the plain questions worth asking: who started it, who owns it now, and where its spirit is actually distilled and bottled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its spirits are made and how its bottles and labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A hilltop cellar door, then a brewer’s balance sheet.

The founders had planned on McLaren Vale from the start. CityMag reported that the distillery and cellar door at the top of Chalk Hill, which it described as the highest hill in McLaren Vale, opened officially on 15 February 2020, sharing the site with the cellar door of Chalk Hill Wines. The same report said a larger, German-made still from the maker CARL was due to arrive later that year.

Four years later the business changed hands. Asahi Beverages, the Australian arm of Japan’s Asahi Group, announced on 1 May 2024 that it was acquiring Never Never, and BeverageDaily reported the next day that the terms were not disclosed. Asahi said all three founders would stay in their roles, that day-to-day operations would not change, and that the gin would be sold through Carlton & United Breweries, its alcohol business and the brewer of Carlton Draught, which Asahi bought in 2020. In the same announcement the Carlton & United Breweries chief executive, Danny Celoni, called the two companies “a terrific fit” and said the gin filled a gap in the brewer’s range, while Georgiadis said the partnership would help grow Australia’s gin market. Startup Daily reported in August 2025 that the founders kept control of operations and that Asahi’s backing had brought wider distribution and sponsorship of the AFL’s Gather Round. Asahi Beverages has owned Never Never since 2024.

The company’s own site is neverneverdistilling.com.au.

For a design guide, Never Never shows how a young distillery can make a region its whole identity, drawing McLaren Vale on its label and then putting local grapes and South Australian oyster shells into its gins. Compare Four Pillars, the Yarra Valley gin distillery, and Archie Rose, the Sydney distillery. For this guide we use grenache red, juniper blue and chalk white with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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