How David Ridden and son Luke raised not just a glass but a distillery to Granddad Jack
To people in the Australian spirits industry, David Ridden will likely need no introduction. He is the President of the Australian Distillers Association and one of the strongest advocates for the golden nectar we all love. To everyone else, Ridden hopes it will be his whiskey that will tell his story, and his family's, for generations to come.
Although Granddad Jack’s Distillery is less than ten years old, it is already a multi-generational family affair. Three generations to be exact, or four, with one rung skipped in the middle. Co-founded by in 2017 by David and his son Luke, Granddad Jack is not just named after, but entirely dedicated to, the legacy of their late grandfather and great-grandfather David Goulding, better known as Granddad Jack.
“In our family, for as long as I can remember, every male in the family, when they turned 13 years old, went to my grandfather's for their first whiskey,” David Ridden tells Whisky Magazine. “Believe me, it's not the best experience you have in your life at 13 years old, drinking Irish whiskey with your grandfather, but we all got through it.
“He loved a whiskey. He had a whiskey every single day of his life, and so we thought, what better way to tell his story.”
And so, despite having no prior whiskey experience, this is exactly what the father-son duo set out to do. Luke left his stable career as car mechanic to become Head Distiller, and David scratched his plans to semi-retire after 30+ years running a mobile events services business to become CEO.
“I absolutely love it; I don't know how many other people in their mid-fifties get to see their son every day,” says David. “I'm sure he gets sick of me, we don't agree with each other on every single point, but that's also good. We really respect each other for the roles we play.”
This origin story has been fundamental to shaping Granddad Jack’s in every sense, from the whiskey in the glass to how they make sure it finds the right lips. As David puts it, he doesn’t want to have his small-batch releases in every bottle-o and bar, he wants the connection.
“The big difference with us [is] that we really focus first and foremost on telling my grandfather's story. We always wanted our whiskey program to be very bespoke. We knew, as a family business, we would never be able to be a big volume player in the whiskey space.”
Granddad Jack’s spirit:
Granddad Jack’s whiskey sub-brand is called Bailiff; again, in honour of his grandad, who at the age of 14, was required to find work after his mother missed a few mortgage payments. In the end, it was he who talked the bailiff into letting them keep the property, or so the story goes.
“Every single week, he had to bike 65 miles to work and 65 miles home, and as a young kid, he was working on a farm with much older people: his story goes that he got a love of whiskey way back in those days,” Ridden says.
“At 14 years old, he managed to talk this bailiff into letting him pay back the money that was owed, which he did, and so that's why all of our whiskey is called Bailiff Whiskey. Because we say, ‘if you don't want to see the bailiff, keep your fucking promise.”
Young whiskey for an old man:
All Bailiff Whiskey is crafted and released in small batches, with everything aged in either 50 or 100 litre barrels.
“We wanted to produce a whiskey that you could really enjoy, and by using small barrels, where that liquid's touching that wood all the time, and by aging it in an environment like here on the Gold Coast by the beach, you get this really rich, super smooth whiskey.”
When asked if his late granddad, an Irish whiskey drinker, would like the whiskeys named after him, David Ridden says he really hopes so: “He passed away before we got to open the distillery at 93 years old, so I hope he would. He's probably more looking down at us going, ‘Why the hell do you keep telling my story, you silly buggers’.”
What’s next for Granddad Jack’s?
When asked this question David simply said to “expect us to do things differently to pretty much most other distilleries in this country”. He also expects Grandad Jack's to become “not just a spirits producer, but really use our brand to link into lifestyle as a whole. And that lifestyle that goes around drinking great whiskey, having great drinks with friends.”
Looking longer term David Ridden added: “I just hope that people remember us from the grandfather's story. That's the key. If people remember parts of that story or all of it in the years to come, even if the spirit's long gone, if they remember the story, then I think we've done an amazing job.”
