Karu Distillery joins forces with Mountains businesses to make chocolate, beer and coffee

These collaborations came about when Karu Distillery owners Ally and Nick Ayres were travelling through the Mountains one day to see friends, and realised there were several opportunities to experiment on new ventures in a local setting.

In the world of beer, Karu Distillery teamed up with Mountain Culture for a stout, which the Katoomba brewery made using the decanted barrels that held Karu Distillery's Outcask Rum.

"We told them that we were ageing barrels of rum, and they got really excited about that. And so when we decanted our barrels [last year] they showed a lot of enthusiasm for wanting to age something in them," Mrs Ayres said.

The result is Mountain Culture's new 'Angel's Share Imperial Stout', a dark brew with subtle flavours helped by absorbing the notes of Karu's rum-soaked barrels.

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The store page for the stout said: "This collaboration with our friends at Karu Distillery has been on our list since the early days when we were drinking their gin to help us get through the build at Katoomba."

Continuing their roll, Karu Distillery also collaborated with Blue Mountains chocolate makers, Meltdown Artisan.

"I assumed it was just going to be something like 'oh, she'd added rum to the chocolate and that was that', but she'd actually infused cacao butter with our rum, so it doesn't have that really boozy punch to it, but you have that really nice sweet accent of what the rum is. And I just fell in love with that," Mrs Ayres said.

Finally, the Karu crew paid a visit to Lawson's ever-growing caffeine provider, Little Coffee Co.

"We met with Darren from the Little Coffee Co, and we've always been a fan of his coffee... he really cares and is really passionate about what he does," Mrs Ayres said.

The end result was the fusing of cold brew coffee and Affinity Gin to create 'Orsa Coffee Gin Liqueur', which was released on August 25 and is described on its store page as tasting "citrus and floral in addition to the bitter cold brew".

Mrs Ayres told the Gazette these various projects are a way to work with the best creative minds locally to spread Blue Mountains tastes all over the country, such as the stout made with Mountain Culture.

"We started around about the same time as Mountain Culture... so just keeping in touch and seeing how each other's brands kind of grow was really really important," she said.

"[It's about] getting people excited about drinking local. And not only just the locals drinking local, but nationally people drinking our local. So it's really cool to see them grow and still be able to have fun with projects like this."

For more information on Karu Distillery's new products, or to shop online, visit their website at: https://karudistillery.com.au/.

The Angel's Share stout can also be purchased through Mountain Culture's website at: https://mountainculture.com.au/products/angels-share-rum-barrel-aged-imperial-stout?variant=42768767025328.