Texture, Not Tradition: Never Never Launches Signature Vodka

WORDS: Ocean Road Editorial Staff PHOTOGRAPHY www.meaghancoles.com

Never Never built its reputation by putting juniper back at the centre of gin. Now, the Australian distillery is challenging convention again with Signature Vodka – its first permanent product beyond gin – applying technical expertise to a category long defined by neutrality.

Distilled from Australian wheat spirit, Signature Vodka is enriched with distilled olive, coconut and avocado oils – an unconventional approach designed to create texture. It’s then filtered through activated carbon for 16 hours and blended with McLaren Vale water adjusted with natural salts to enhance pH and mouthfeel.

“We built a textural vodka using the techniques learned over eight years of making gin,” said co-founder Sean Baxter. “This isn’t a departure – it’s an extension of what we already do well, and it gives us the chance to bring something genuinely new to a category that has long been defined by sameness.”

The result is a vodka with a long, silky finish and subtle notes of olive, white chocolate, honeyed macadamia and coconut cream.

The launch coincides with vodka’s renewed momentum through the martini revival, which Baxter describes as “perfect alignment between a local innovation and a global cocktail trend.”

photography www.meaghancoles.com

Recipe: Signature Vodka Martini

A Vodka Martini is delicate and dry – perfect for a hot summer’s day and best served as ice-cold as possible.

Signature Vodka makes a delicate and smooth martini, perfectly garnished with Sicilian olives to reflect the olive oil used in distillation.

Ingredients

• 60mL Signature Vodka
• 10mL Dry Vermouth
• Dash of olive brine
• Garnish with 2 green olives

Method

• Add vodka and vermouth into a mixing glass with ice and stir well.
• Pour into a chilled martini glass and garnish with olives.

photography www.meaghancoles.com