We Are Ester Spirits
Created by two Sydney dedicated hospo veterans, husband and wife team, Corinna and Felix, full-blown flavour fanatics who reckon life’s too short for anything less than ‘fuck off deliciousness’
Inspired by an obsessive quest for the perfect Negroni, we began our distilling journey over 10 years ago with a tiny still in the backyard of our Newtown digs.
After many iterations and non stop tinkering, Ester Spirits officially launched in 2020.
The penny finally dropped when Ester Strong Gin won ‘Best in Show’ at the Australian Gin Awards in its first month of launching and shortly after that took out the title of ‘World's Best Navy Gin’ at the World Gin Awards in 2021.
The first rule of Ester is charismatic flavour, and lots of it. Ester's botanical load is much higher than most others, which drives up costs, a price we are happy to pay considering the uptick in flavour and wrap-around-the-tongue character we get into the glass.
The second rule is balance: no one component steals the show, bringing a chef’s mentality to fine-tune the scale between big flavour and textural elements.
The spirit of creation and expression is at the core of everything we do at Ester.
The distilling methodology, the diverse ingredients, the way formulas change with the unique Australian environment to the talented food makers of Australia who continually inspire the team here at Ester.
Ester Spirits our liquid declaration of our love of Sydney, the ingredients and of course the people.
We are Ester Spirits
felix
CO FOUNDER + HEAD-DISTILLER
Felix the distiller. A free thinker who loves to tinker, a mad scientist, a cook, a chemist.
Felix has been in hospitality his whole adult life, and hospitality being like dog years, makes him quite the veteran. Working in hotels, restaurants, cocktail bars, dingy nightclubs and mega pubs, he's always had a close affinity to alcohol and service.
Felix HIS-tory
His family tree runs full of scientists, doctors and astro physicists so he naturally had an uncanny understanding of chemistry from a young age but Felix's path was quite different. Choosing hospitality straight out of uni, he loved it from the very first day, the frantic pace, the unrelenting cadence, the frenzy of issues that arise 2 minutes before service , the wild excitement after completing a shift with access to so much good booze. It was an all consuming, deranged kind of love, the kind of hedonistic relationship that never gets boring, It's so god damn unstable.
It was when Felix started distilling in the backyard of his house in Newtown over ten years ago that something stirred deep within. The mad scientist was roused, it became an obsession, he wanted to craft a world class Australian gin that would replace all the international spirits he'd been serving and served in Australian bars and restaurants, it was really that straight forward.
And so Ester was born.
So here's to Felix, and his amazing gin, a drink that's not just spirit, but a story within.
FELIX C. 1989
Alex Beaumont International
School of Hospitality
Corinna
CO-FOUNDER + CREATIVE DIRECTOR
A keen collector, connector of trinkets, treasures and visual stories from far away territories.
Coming from a long line of non conformists, her father, a fire eating clown in a European circus and artist and prop designer for a mother, a cross dressing queer grandfather and a Russian party girl princess grandmother, it wasn't a very conventional life…
Corinna HER-STORY
A penchant for the exotic and a palette to match, growing up surrounded by performers and artists, gave her perhaps skewed idea that work should be filled with joie de vivre. A natural tendency for the theatrical, a keen eye for craftsmanship and creativity and a healthy distrust of the status quo, these equal parts form the basis for her talents at Ester.
Working in every facet of hospitality but mainly kitchens since a wee young thing, Corinna found comfort and familiarity in all the eccentric and seemingly random mixed bag of people who make up hospitality.
Interiors and food, that sums up Corinna in two words, her vision will be to try and form a new look and feel for Australian Spirits, creating a brand that's much bigger, more meaningful than just the juice.
Not one to stick to a brief or a budget she's here to complicate things and make it more weird and more wonderful.
CORINNA’S DAD
C. 1975
Friends Roadshow Tour La Rochelle, France
the team
CYD - JNR DISTILLER
Meet Cyd the squid, a multi armed goddess with a can do prowess, our go to & life support at Ester who wears many hats, assistant distiller, warehouse manager, part time cook and on the side extremely talented jewellery designer. We feel very lucky to have her.
SAPPH - JNR DESIGNER
Sapphire, weaver of visual dreams, crafting masterpieces from digital streams. Bright and sharp, she's a gem just like her namesake, her creations speak volumes, without a word, a language of images that touches and stirs.
BENE - SNR DESIGNER
She's also very ‘molto bene’ and one half of the team at Form-A studio. Bene has been integral in helping bring the brand to life with a very distinctive look and feel we love.
