The Flavour of Heresy: Corinna Kovner, Ester Spirits and the Art of Asking Different Questions.

Every family leaves something behind.

Sometimes it is land. Sometimes recipes, silverware or a surname that opens the right doors. Entire industries have been built upon these inheritances. Luxury, in particular, has become an elaborate exercise in genealogy, forever tracing the provenance of objects as though authenticity were a substance that slowly settles with age. The older the story, the greater its authority. Wine invokes monasteries, Champagne invokes courts, whisky invokes stone warehouses and weather. Dust, one occasionally suspects, has become a marketing strategy.

Yet there exists another form of inheritance that is considerably rarer.

Some families pass down permission.

Permission to disregard categories. Permission to collect beautiful but unnecessary things. Permission to invite too many people to dinner, to confuse work with pleasure, to value conversation above efficiency and curiosity above expertise. These inheritances rarely appear in family archives. They survive instead as habits of mind, passed quietly from one eccentric generation to the next.

Culture itself has always advanced this way.

The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss argued that cooking transforms nature into culture. Distillation performs a similarly strange alchemy. Grain ceases to be grain. Fruit abandons its original identity. Fermentation is organised instability, a process in which disappearance becomes creation. Nature's most sophisticated achievements are often acts of confident mutation rather than faithful preservation.

Perhaps originality obeys the same laws.

Contemporary drinks culture has become remarkably accomplished at manufacturing authenticity. Imperfections are art-directed. Histories are polished until they resemble folklore. Entire brands appear to have been assembled from reclaimed timber and sepia photography. The performance is often immaculate, but one leaves with the suspicion that tradition has become an aesthetic before it remains an idea.

The producers worth paying attention to are usually those who seem oddly uninterested in this theatre. They borrow indiscriminately - from kitchens, galleries, architecture, music, hospitality and travel - until the boundaries between those disciplines begin to feel artificial. Their work resembles a cabinet of curiosities more than a category. The organising principle is neither orthodoxy nor rebellion, but appetite.

Australia has quietly become fertile ground for such thinking. Distance from Europe's canonical centres has long been mistaken for disadvantage when it has often proved liberating. The country's most original chefs and winemakers have succeeded not because they perfected inherited traditions, but because they approached them with the confidence of translators rather than custodians. They understood that fidelity to an idea is sometimes best expressed through transformation.

It is somewhere within this disposition that Ester begins to make sense.

To describe it simply as a distillery would be accurate in the way describing a library as a room full of paper is accurate. The bottles matter, certainly, but they feel like the visible consequence of a larger cultural instinct, i.e.one informed as much by interiors, collecting, hospitality and visual storytelling as by stills and spirit safes. The project possesses the delightful unpredictability of a Renaissance Wunderkammer, those cabinets of curiosities in which shells sat beside astronomical instruments, fossils beside mechanical birds, each object enriching the meaning of the next through improbable proximity.

Perhaps that intellectual architecture should not surprise us. Some inherit cooperages; others inherit circus tents. Some receive technical manuals; others receive artists, performers, magnificent nonconformists and the tacit understanding that the world is infinitely more interesting when approached sideways.

The Surrealists believed creativity emerged from unexpected encounters between distant realities. Ester often appears to operate according to precisely that principle: flavour as collage rather than doctrine, hospitality as composition rather than service.

The philosopher José Ortega y Gasset wrote, "Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are." That may also be true of the finest drinks. They are not merely collections of ingredients but collections of attentions - the countless decisions about what deserves emphasis and what deserves omission. Taste, in the end, is simply philosophy rendered edible.

Our conversation with Corinna Kovner, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Ester Spirits, begins with alcohol only in the narrow technical sense. It soon becomes a conversation about authorship, aesthetics, collecting, generosity and the peculiar possibility that the future of Australian spirits may belong not to those who inherit the oldest traditions, but to those fortunate enough to inherit curiosity itself.

Ester has always felt less interested in reproducing established spirits traditions than in interrogating them. Looking back, was the ambition from the outset to build a distillery, or to create a platform through which familiar categories could be reconsidered on your own terms?

Corinna Kovner: It's a difficult question because the answer is genuinely both.

When Felix started distilling, he was making an extraordinary amount of alcohol in our backyard in Newtown. His obsession was flavour. He wanted to recreate the classics, but make them louder, more expressive, more reflective of the way we wanted to drink today.

Proof that the most dangerous ingredient in a distillery isn't alcohol - it's curiosity.

I came at it from a completely different angle. My background is hospitality, food, culture and storytelling. I wasn't particularly interested in whether another gin existed. I was more interested in why so many alcohol brands felt trapped by convention.

Everything looked backwards. Vintage labels. Heritage cues. A very narrow idea of luxury built around leather armchairs, cigar smoke and nostalgia.

I thought there was room for a different conversation.

So while Felix was focused on the liquid, I was focused on building a platform around it.

For me, Ester has never simply been a distillery. It's a lens through which we explore flavour, hospitality, design and culture. The bottle matters, but what interests me just as much is what happens around the bottle. The dinner party. The wedding. The barbecue. The conversation that stretches late into the evening.

The spirit is only one part of the story.

Ultimately, Ester exists because we wanted to create the kinds of drinks we wished existed, and build the kind of brand we wished existed alongside them.

Many distilleries begin with a place and build a product from it. Ester often feels as though it began with a way of thinking. How would you describe the underlying philosophy that connects your gin, whisky, vodka and limited releases, beyond the liquid itself?

Corinna Kovner: Ester absolutely began as a philosophy. In fact, the name itself explains almost everything.

An ester is a flavour compound formed during fermentation. It's responsible for many of the aromas and flavours we associate with fruit, flowers and complexity. We loved the idea that flavour isn't static; it's something formed through transformation.

That became the guiding principle of the brand.

We launched Ester with very little money about twenty thousand dollars and a very strong set of beliefs. No market research. No carefully engineered USP. Just a conviction that individual taste matters. The guiding rule has always been simple: More flavour.

Not more flavour for shock value. More flavour because we genuinely believe exceptional drinks should be expressive rather than restrained.

We're maximalists. Our botanical loads are significantly higher than industry norms. We use macadamia in all our gins because texture matters just as much as aroma. Our aperitivo, which recently became the highest-scoring aperitif at the IWSC, is built on an orange base because it creates more layers of flavour, despite being a far more expensive way to make it.

We're constantly making decisions that probably make very little sense on a spreadsheet.

But flavour has always come first.

What connects every bottle is the belief that confidence and individuality create more interesting spirits than trend forecasting ever could. We aren't trying to fit categories. We're trying to make the most compelling version of an idea possible.

The Australian craft spirits movement has matured significantly over the past decade. In your view, what assumptions about Australian distilling have proven correct, and which have been most satisfying to see disproven?

Corinna Kovner: What's proven correct is that Australia has become one of the most exciting spirits-producing countries in the world. For a relatively small nation, we're consistently punching well above our weight on the global stage.

Part of that comes down to Australia's food culture. We have incredibly sophisticated palates. Our dining culture has been shaped by migration, proximity to Asia and a genuine curiosity about flavour. We instinctively understand balance not just sweetness, but acidity, bitterness, salinity, texture and aroma working together. You can see that influence throughout Australian spirits.

What's been most satisfying to see disproven is the idea that great spirits need to imitate Europe to be taken seriously.

For a long time there was a tendency to look outward for validation. Today, some of Australia's most exciting producers are succeeding precisely because they're developing their own voice. That's certainly been our experience.

We've never sat around a table discussing trends. In fact, we've often done the opposite. We use more botanicals than most people think is sensible. We put macadamia into gin. We built an aperitivo around Australian ingredients rather than Italian convention. We treated rum with the same seriousness that many people reserve for whisky.

Those decisions weren't driven by market research. They were driven by personal taste.

The fact that those choices have led to multiple World's Best titles has been incredibly validating. Not because of the trophies themselves, but because they reinforce a belief we've held from the beginning: individuality travels further than imitation.

There is a noticeable sense of restraint across the Ester portfolio. Even the more assertive releases rarely feel performative. How do you determine when an idea has enough character to warrant bottling, and when experimentation risks becoming novelty?

Corinna Kovner: It's funny because I don't think anyone who works at Ester would ever describe us as restrained.

We're maximalists by nature. Our botanical loads are significantly higher than industry norms, our flavours tend to be saturated and expressive, and we're generally willing to spend more time and money chasing flavour than common sense would recommend.

That said, there's an important distinction between boldness and gimmickry.

Every idea has to answer a very simple question: would we genuinely choose to drink it?

Not once. Not for a social media moment. Repeatedly.

Would Felix drink it? Would I drink it? Would we proudly pour it for our hospitality friends whose opinions we trust?

If the answer is no, it doesn't go any further.

We've never been particularly interested in novelty for novelty's sake. There are plenty of ways to attract attention in spirits. You can use unusual ingredients, create outrageous flavour combinations or invent categories. But if the flavour doesn't justify the idea, then it's just theatre.

Our products always start with flavour.

The reason our aperitivo became the highest-scoring aperitif at the IWSC wasn't because we set out to reinvent the category. We simply wanted to create a more flavourful expression. The same is true of our gin, rum and whisky. They all begin with personal taste rather than a commercial brief.

The line between innovation and novelty is actually quite simple.

If the idea makes the drink taste better, we'll explore it.

If it only makes the story better, we're not interested.

Strong Gin occupies an interesting position within the category. It is unmistakably gin, yet it feels designed with a broader conversation about flavour, texture and intensity in mind. What was the question you were trying to answer when developing it?

Corinna Kovner: The funny thing is that Strong Gin wasn't originally intended to be a Navy Strength at all.

It began life as what we thought would be our flagship London Dry. But every time we diluted it down to a conventional strength, something disappeared. The brightness softened. The texture thinned. The personality started to fade. So rather than forcing it into a category, we followed the flavour.

As we increased the ABV, the botanicals became more vivid and expressive. The juniper grew louder, the Tasmanian pepperberry became more aromatic, the finger lime started to sparkle and the cardamom lifted right out of the glass.

At 57%, everything suddenly felt complete.

One of the great misconceptions in spirits is that higher alcohol automatically means harsher alcohol. In reality, dilution often means diluting flavour. Strength and intensity aren't necessarily the same thing.

Strong Gin was really an exercise in asking what happens when flavour is allowed to exist in its most complete form.

The macadamia is a perfect example. We use it in all our gins because its natural oils create texture and viscosity. In Strong Gin, that mouthfeel becomes even more important. It acts almost like a conductor, bringing all those bright green, peppery, rainforest-like flavours together into something cohesive. It's undoubtedly a powerful gin, but power was never the goal. Flavour was.

The strength simply happened to be where the flavour wanted to live.

The Full Proof Single Malt Whisky arrives at a moment when Australian whisky is increasingly defining itself on the global stage. What aspects of the spirit do you feel are uniquely reflective of Ester, rather than simply reflective of contemporary Australian whisky?

Corinna Kovner: What makes it distinctly Ester is that it follows exactly the same philosophy as every other product we've made. We weren't trying to create an Australian whisky.

We were trying to create an Ester whisky. For us, that means flavour first.

The decision to release it at full proof wasn't about bravado. It was about preserving character. We wanted people to experience the whisky as close as possible to the way it existed in the cask. Richer texture. Greater complexity. More presence.

That philosophy runs through everything we do.

We're not interested in polishing away personality in pursuit of broad appeal.

What I love about this whisky is that despite its intensity, it's remarkably approachable. It's serious without being self-important. Experienced whisky drinkers can spend hours pulling it apart, but someone completely new to whisky can still find pleasure in it immediately.

That balance feels very Ester.

We talk a lot internally about tension. It's represented in our logo and embedded in how we think about flavour. Opposing forces held in balance. Art and science. Intuition and precision. Power and elegance. Tradition and reinterpretation.

This whisky sits in exactly that space.

It's mature and contemplative, but never overly reverential. It respects tradition without being constrained by it.

In many ways, that's what we've tried to do with every category we've entered. Not reject the classics, but ask what they might look like through our lens.

The result is a whisky that feels unmistakably Australian, but more importantly, unmistakably Ester.

Hospitality appears deeply embedded in the DNA of Ester. To what extent has your experience of serving people directly - rather than simply producing spirits - shaped the way you think about flavour, balance and drinkability?

Corinna Kovner: Hospitality is the reason Ester exists. Long before we were distillers, we were hospitality people. I started my chef's apprenticeship more than twenty-five years ago. Felix was working in bars and clubs. When we met over fifteen years ago, we built businesses around the simple idea that making things from scratch mattered.

Our café, The Tuckshop, operated almost like a fermentation laboratory disguised as a bakery. We made our own bacon, butter, kombucha, smoked salmon, sourdough and pastries. There was an obsession with process, but really it was an obsession with flavour.

That hasn't changed.

The difference between producing spirits and working in hospitality is that hospitality teaches you that flavour never exists in isolation. A drink isn't simply liquid in a glass. It's who you're sharing it with. It's what you're eating. It's the occasion. It's the memory that forms around it.

For us, a great spirit isn't finished when it leaves the still. It's finished when it's being shared.

That's probably why we've always approached flavour the way chefs approach food. We think about tension and balance rather than tasting notes. Sweetness means very little without bitterness. Acidity needs texture. Power needs restraint. Every product we make is trying to find harmony between opposing forces.

In many ways that's what our logo represents.

The two forms never quite touch. There's a tension held between them. It represents Felix and I, but also the broader philosophy behind Ester: Art and science, intuition and precision, hospitality and production. The most interesting things happen in that space between opposites.

Hospitality has also kept us honest.

Felix understands bartenders because he was one. He knows exactly what professionals want to work with. I sit on the opposite side of the equation. I love flavour, but I don't come from a spirits background. I represent the curious drinker.

When we won World's Best Gin, World's Best Rum and World's Highest-Scoring Aperitif, my first thought wasn't about the trophy. It was, "Wonderful. Now how do people actually drink this?"

That question ultimately led us into cocktails and RTDs. Not because convenience was the goal, but because accessibility was. We wanted to remove the intimidation factor and show people just how enjoyable great spirits can be.

Everything we make is really trying to achieve the same thing: helping people create memorable moments around a table.

Founding and building a distillery as a couple inevitably creates a dynamic distinct from that of a conventional business partnership. How have your respective perspectives shaped Ester, and where do your instincts most often diverge?

Corinna Kovner: The entire brand is built on our differences.

In fact, the logo was designed around that idea.

It's two opposing forms held in balance. They never fully merge. The space between them is intentional because that's where Ester lives.

Felix and I approach almost everything from opposite directions.

He's deeply technical. Pragmatic. Methodical. He can tell you exactly how to build something.

I'm far more conceptual. I'm interested in culture, storytelling, aesthetics and the emotional side of brands. My instinct is always to ask, "What could this become?" while Felix is asking, "How do we actually make it happen?"

Sometimes that creates friction.

But I've come to realise that friction isn't a weakness. It's often where the best ideas emerge.

Neither of us is particularly interested in making something that's simply acceptable. We both care deeply about quality, but we arrive there through different routes. Felix pushes for technical excellence. I push for emotional resonance. Together, those things create a kind of productive tension.

Without Felix, Ester could become all concept and no substance.

Without me, it could become all substance and no story.

The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle.

I think that's why the brand feels quite cohesive despite touching so many different categories. Whether it's whisky, gin, aperitivo, cocktails or events, they're all expressions of the same conversation we've been having for fifteen years.

If somebody were to discover Ester twenty years from now, what would you hope they recognise as the enduring idea behind the brand, beyond any individual release, bottle, or category?

Corinna Kovner: I hope they recognise that Ester was never really about alcohol.

The alcohol was simply the medium.

At its core, Ester is about flavour, creativity, connection and the pursuit of a beautiful life.

We've always believed that taste matters. Not just what something tastes like, but taste as a way of seeing the world. The choices you make. The things you surround yourself with. The people you gather around your table.

From the beginning, we've trusted our own instincts rather than chasing trends. Sometimes that has looked commercially irrational. We've spent more money on ingredients than we probably should have. We've made products that took longer, cost more and asked more questions than the market necessarily wanted answered.

Yet almost every major achievement we've had has come from following personal conviction rather than convention.

That's the legacy I'd like people to see.

Not necessarily the awards, although we're incredibly proud of them. Not the categories we've entered or the bottles we've released.

I hope they see a brand that remained curious.

A brand that believed more flavour, more feeling and more expression were worthwhile pursuits. A brand that understood hospitality isn't about selling drinks - it's about bringing people together. And ultimately, a brand that proved individuality is far more interesting than imitation.

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Words and questions by AW.

Answers courtesy of Corinna Kovner.

Photo courtesy of Ester Spirits.