One Year Anniversary
365 days, hundreds of cocktails, and an uncountable number of “wait, what is rakia?” conversations later — we’ve officially hit the one-year mark since we threw open our doors!
What started as a little idea to bring proper, handcrafted spirits and tasty AF cocktails to Melbourne has grown into a homey bar where locals gather, old traditions are revived, and good drinks are always flowing.
Now, 12 months, countless handcrafted cocktails, and a whole lot of good chats later; our little bar has become a proper local hangout. Whether you’ve popped in for a rakia or just to sniff around and see what we’re about — we’re so glad to have met you, and for helping make this first year unforgettable.
Here’s some of our fave higlights from the last 12 months.
FROM A RUN DOWN WAREHOUSE TO A HOMEY & COMFY SPACE TO CHILL
When we signed the lease for this warehouse, we literally never dreamed it could look as warm and inviting as this. It was in the creepy industrial part of Kensington, with a creepy toilet and a creepy murder shower that looked like it had seen a dozen dead bodies, AND a creepy demon hole with no ending in sight. But we knew with a little bit of hard work, it would be a perfect (and let's be honest, affordable) first place to start our distillery.
We never dreamed we could open a bar - it really was just way too creepy an area. But then new apartments started sprouting up like daisies, transforming our 'creepy' into Kensington’s new 'cozy.' Suddenly, it wasn’t just us and the echoes anymore. With neighbors, it felt less like a set from a horror flick and more like the up-and-coming spot we now know and love.
So we got to work - we replaced the creepy toilet with 2 new and shiny ones, got rid of the murder shower, covered up the demon hole, hand painted the floors, furnished it with freebies from the side of the road, built a bar, and somehow found time to create four award winning spirits (and because we're really crazy, we did it all without a single financial loan).
Now, it looks a little bit like this - looking at these photos now, it's hard to believe that old dingy and creepy warehouse is now this cosy and safe place.
We launched the Kenzo Crawl
One of the best things to happen to us since opening our roller door is the friendships we've made with Kensington locals Bakery Hill Distillery and Bonehead Brewing, and we couldn't be more excited to introduce our love child - Kensingtons newest bar crawl we've lovingly dubbed "The Kenzo Crawl".
For more information about what exactly this is and how you can experience the Kenzo Crawl, head on over here.
We won some awards!
This feels like a totally wild thing to say still, but in the first 8 months of opening our doors, our spirits won FOUR awards at the 2024 Australian Distilled Spirits Awards!
Here's what we came home with in the "Alternative Spirits" category:
🥇 Pear Rakia came back with a score of 90/100 and a shiny new gold medal!
🥈 Plum Rakia came home with a shiny silver.
🥉 Blueberry Rakia carried us home with a bronze!
Our Lemon Spirit also came home with a Bronze medal in the "Fruit Infused Spirits" category 😍.
We EXPANDED OUR PRODUCT LINE by 160%
When we first opened our doors, we had only a few core products in our line up. Our Pear Rakia, Lemon Spirit, Rum, Coffee Vodka & our two Gins.
Since then, we’ve expanded our core product range to include three new products (Blueberry Rakia, Plum Rakia, and Grape Spirit) as well as a few other fun things, like our backyard strength bottles for the true rakia lovers, sample packs, and merch!
Over the last eight months we have heard you loud and clear that our Rakia Margarita is your favourite cocktail (it’s not even a competition at this point)! And in case you missed it, we’ve collaborated with our friends at Bonehead Brewing over the last six months, figuring out how to put it in a can so you can enjoy it anywhere, anytime. Our Rakia Margarita RTDs literally hit the shelves just in time for summer, and are flying off the shelves faster than we can keep up.
We also launched the “inner circle”
As if there wasn’t enough work to keep us on our toes, we also started to get requests from our neighbours and locals to make custom batches of spirits, often using fruit from the trees in the backyards. Of course we said YES - but what do you do with super small batches of spirits?
We’re talking like, 10-30 bottles at a time - it’s really small batch stuff! So we decided to start building a small VIP community of spirit lovers, that we’ve lovingly dubbed “The Inner Circle” and release these products exclusively to them as we go.
So far over the last 12 months we’ve launched Mary’s Blood Orange Rum, matching Blood Orange Cello and our first batch of Christmas Rakia (which we might just make an annual tradition).
If you’d like to join the Inner Circle, just pop your details in below, and keep an eye on your inbox for our next release.
THANK YOU!
So, here’s to one year down and many more to come. Whether you’ve been with us since day one or just wandered in last week, thanks for backing us, drinking with us, and letting us do what we love. Keep coming in, keep asking “what’s rakia?” (we’ll keep answering), and keep making this place what it is—a damn good spot for a drink and a chat.
Prost, salud, здоровье!, Živjeli, cin cin, cheers!
