Coastal Stone Salvaged Ale Whisky

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 17:16:22 +1000

About the drink

Coastal Stone is a signature whisky series from Manly Spirits, and this particular whisky has a unique backstory. During the Covid lockdown period, Four Pines Brewery, situated next door were preparing to discard a batch of kolsch ale. On seeing the batch preparing to be dumped, the Manly Spirits team asked to take the beer in and distill it into whiskey. What came out a few years later was a unique whiskey that retains a lot of the flavour of the original beer, combined with the remnants of prior fills. The description provided on the bottle is “From COVID venue lockdows we salvaged our brewery neighbour’s kegged kolsch beer and funnelled it into our whisky stills. The result? An adventurous, hop-inspired whisky worth every drop of the experiment”, and notes on the back “Delicate and floral with cherry aromatics, offering a tropical fruity sweetness on the mid-palate with a light smooth finish”

Finders Barrel Aged Gin

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 17:29:32 +1000

About the drink

The Finders Distillery Barrel Aged Gin is a limited-run gin, in this case aged in an Oloroso Sherry Cask. The description on the bottle notes “Featuring juniper, cassia bark, orris root and wattle seed, it’s the perfect starting place for great flavour to come”. At 43.2% ABV it’s slightly higher than a typical gin, but given the tendency of barrel-aging in Sydney to increase the ABV of spirits this is more than expected. From my layman’s view, judging by the colour of the gin I would guess an aging time of 12-24 months. Enough time to develop the nice caramel colour we can see below.

Reviews on Sam's Space

Coastal Stone Salvaged Ale Whisky

About the drink

Finders Barrel Aged Gin

About the drink