Why did we choose to make single malt whisky rather than gin, vodka or another spirit? The answer has everything to do with where we live, what inspires us, and the kind of business we wanted to build.

Before Kinglake Distillery existed, Chantal and I simply loved good spirits.

One of our favourite rituals was, and still is, sitting down together for a Martini before dinner, whether at home or out with friends. Living in the French Alps only deepened that fascination.

We met while working ski seasons in the Savoie region, where we were lucky enough to discover an extraordinary range of traditional spirits. One of the annual staff outings was to the monastery at Chartreuse, home to the famous liqueur made from more than 130 herbs, plants and flowers. We also discovered beautiful eaux-de-vie, Marc de Savoie, Génépi and countless other regional spirits that reflected the places they came from.

Those experiences planted a seed. By the time we left France, we already knew that one day we'd love to create a spirit of our own.

The question wasn't whether we'd build a distillery. It was what we'd make.

We already owned our 50-acre property in the Kinglake Ranges, but we wanted the spirit itself to be inseparable from that place. We didn't want to create something that could just as easily have been made anywhere else.

That naturally led us to single malt whisky.

One of the things I love most about Scotch whisky is its remarkable sense of place. A dram can evoke the windswept coastlines of Islay, the mountains of the Highlands or the clear streams that run through Scotland's glens. Geography, climate and tradition all leave their fingerprints on the final whisky.

That idea resonated deeply with us.

We wanted to create a whisky that spoke just as clearly of Kinglake. A whisky shaped by mountain spring water, cool winters, eucalyptus forests and the unique conditions of Victoria's high country.

Single malt also gave us the greatest opportunity to express that character.

Unlike many other spirits, where the base spirit may be produced somewhere else before flavours are added, every stage of our whisky is created here on the property. We mash, ferment, distil and mature every drop ourselves, allowing countless small decisions to shape the final character of the spirit.

There was another reason single malt appealed to me.

My great-grandfather was a farmer and entrepreneur in England. Although his farm was sold before I was born, I always admired the idea of building something designed to outlast its founders. Something that would still have meaning decades into the future.

Single malt whisky encourages that kind of thinking.

The best whisky rewards patience. It asks you to make decisions today whose results you may not fully see for ten, fifteen or even twenty years. Rather than seeing that as a drawback, I've always found it one of the most satisfying parts of making whisky.

Every cask we fill is really an investment in the future.

We chose single malt because it offered the greatest opportunity to create something that genuinely reflects where we live, while building a family business that we hope will still be making whisky long after we're gone.