Kangaroo Island Spirits: Fifteen Years Ahead of the Boom and Still Leading

1. Kangaroo Island — the place that makes the spirits possible
2. The Lark family — a dynasty in Australian distilling
3. The gins — Wild Gin, O’Gin, and the native botanical range
4. The whisky — the 2026 Single Malt launch
5. Visiting Kangaroo Island Spirits

Kangaroo Island — The Place That Makes the Spirits Possible

Kangaroo Island is Australia’s third-largest offshore island, 150 kilometers southwest of Adelaide across the Backstairs Passage. It draws more than 40,000 international visitors annually — primarily from Italy, Germany, and North America — for its extraordinary wildlife, pristine beaches, and unspoiled bushland. Around a third of the island is protected national park. The koalas, sea lions, echidnas, and kangaroos that give it its reputation are genuinely everywhere. It is one of the few places in Australia where the natural environment feels as intact as it looks.

It is also, as Jon and Sarah Lark recognized in 2002, an exceptional place to make spirits. The island’s isolation — no fruit fly quarantine zone means the botanical diversity is extraordinary — combined with its clean air, pure water, and agricultural community of passionate artisan producers creates conditions for genuinely site-specific distilling. The native botanicals that grow here — the coastal daisy bush, the native juniper, the lemon and aniseed myrtle — grow nowhere else in quite the same form. When KIS includes them in its gins, the island is literally in the bottle.

The Lark Family — A Dynasty in Australian Distilling

The Lark family’s contribution to Australian spirits is without parallel. Bill Lark — Jon’s brother — started Australia’s first legal craft distillery in Tasmania in 1993, successfully lobbying for changes to the Distillation Act that had effectively prohibited small-scale distilling since the 19th century. Lark Distillery in Hobart became the founding institution of the Australian whisky industry, building a global reputation for Tasmanian single malt that now draws serious whisky drinkers from around the world. Bill Lark is, without controversy, the Godfather of Australian whisky.

Jon and Sarah Lark took a different path on a different island. Rather than following Bill into whisky, they started with gin — a category that barely existed in Australia in 2002 — and built KIS into the country’s most awarded and most internationally recognized gin brand before the Australian craft gin boom made such achievements commonplace. The O’Gin won the Contemporary Style Gin Trophy at the International Wine and Spirits Competition in London — the first and only Australian brand to do so in the competition’s 50-year history. When the Decoded Spirits Awards named Wild Gin Best Australian Gin in 2024 from more than 450 entries, it was the latest in a line of recognitions stretching back more than two decades.

Jon and Sarah sold KIS around 2020 to focus on the next chapter, but stayed on to run operations — their knowledge of the island, the botanicals, and the production process is too embedded in the brand to simply hand over. The 2026 whisky launch is the moment when the Lark family’s two island spirits stories — Tasmanian whisky and Kangaroo Island gin — finally converge in the same bottle.

The Gins — Wild Gin, O’Gin, and the Native Botanical Range

KIS produces its gins with 100% Australian-grown juniper — a point of difference from most gins worldwide, which use imported European juniper. The Kangaroo Island native juniper (Myoporum insulare) provides the backbone; the supporting botanicals are where the island’s unique ecosystem comes through.

The Whisky — The 2026 Single Malt Launch

The whisky program was always part of the longer-term plan at KIS. Around 2020 a brand-new 4,500-litre still was installed — a dramatic step up from the 80-litre copper pot still that started it all — making KIS the largest whisky distillery in South Australia. The whisky program uses locally grown Kangaroo Island barley, malted on the island itself rather than sourced from a commercial maltster, and aged in a combination of cask types that reflects both international whisky tradition and distinctly South Australian character.

The Bill Lark context matters here. Bill started Tasmania’s — and Australia’s — whisky industry from scratch in 1993. Jon and Sarah founded KIS in 2006 as Australia’s first dedicated gin distillery, with whisky always part of the longer-term plan. The 2026 Single Malt launch is the moment when the two Lark brothers’ work on two different islands arrives at the same destination. The Tasmanian whisky industry Bill helped create is now internationally celebrated; the South Australian whisky industry that KIS’s 4,500-litre still is helping to establish is at the beginning of the same journey.

Visiting Kangaroo Island Spirits

The distillery and cellar door at Cygnet River offer an immersive experience that has been significantly upgraded since the original tasting room Jon and Sarah built from scratch. Tours take visitors through the production process — from the native botanical foraging to the still room to the barrel warehouse — and the cellar door offers the full gin range alongside the new whisky expressions and the liqueurs and vodkas that round out the KIS portfolio.