HomeBusinessFood & drinksKalki Moon's first export ships for England

Kalki Moon’s first export ships for England

Kalki Moon founder and distiller Rick Prosser is preparing to export his locally made gin to the United Kingdom.
Kalki Moon founder and distiller Rick Prosser is exporting his locally made gin to the United Kingdom.

Kalki Moon’s first export of award-winning Bundaberg-distilled gin has set sail for England in a landmark achievement for the family business.

Master distiller and founder Rick Prosser said the first international shipment of Kalki Moon left Brisbane on 27 December and contained all of his local gin products including the classic, the premium and the popular pink gin.

Rick believes a little bit of luck was involved in helping him to export Kalki Moon so fast as the company is only set to celebrate its third birthday in March.

“We are lucky because of the tourism we have here in Bundaberg,” he said.

“On the back of Bundaberg Brewed Drinks, Bundaberg Rum and our tourism we already have quite a few English tourists who come here.

“It was actually by chance a friend of an Australian bloke, who lives in England and is a liquor merchant, went through the distillery and told his friend, Will, all about it.”

Kalki Moon exports from one family to another

Rick said that tour inadvertently was fundamental to the first export of Kalki Moon as word started to spread and it was nice to ship from one family business to another.

“We have shipped a pallet and it’s pretty much all sold all ready and it hasn’t even arrived yet,” he said.

Kalki Moon export England
Kalki Moon's first international export has left Australia bound for the UK. Master distiller Rick Prosser said his father-in-law Shane Nash, who also works in the business, wishes he could have gone with it.

“England is renowned for gin, so this is definitely a nice feeling for us.

“And it’s a nice feeling to ship it to a family-owned company, Nippitaty Liquor Merchants, owned by an Australian guy.

“Another coincidence was while I was working with Will, his mum actually went through the distillery and told him about us, and she didn’t even know we had already been in contact and were making the arrangements.”

Rick said he expected positive results for Kalki Moon's first export to England and planned for a second shipment to leave Australia towards the end of March.

Kalki Moon hopes to make top 10 gins

With gin becoming more popular in Australia, Rick said the next goal was to be named in the top 10 gins for the nation, and with help from the Bundaberg community he believes it could be a real possibility.

He said Covent Garden held the annual Ginuary event and celebrated the hottest 100 gins from across Australia and New Zealand.

Last year Kalki Moon was awarded 12th place for the best gin of 2018 and placed 15th for its premium gin.

Earlier this year Kalki Moon won gold at the Australian Distilled Spirits Awards for its Navy Strength Gin. 

The online voting for the Ginuary awards is now open.

“We are definitely off to a good start to the year with our first export leaving and we hope to be in the top 10 of the Ginuary awards later this month,” Rick said.

“We are also eager to get a response from England as we know gin is extremely big in the UK.

“We never really thought three years ago we would be here today and it’s all thanks to the backing of the local community.

“Locals embraced us from day one and we are really lucky, especially when we look at numbers and see on average, we have had 25,000 people take a tour of the distillery per year.”

Earlier reports:

>