Could distilleries be pushing up Victorian property prices?

Distilleries are injecting some spirit into regional Victorian property markets, new research shows.

House prices have been rising in towns like Healesville, Bright and Kyneton since gin enthusiasts started raising their glasses at their distilleries, according to the Real Estate Institute of Victoria.

REIV president Robyn Waters says “gin joints, whiskey dens and vodka purveyors popping up all over the state” had become attractions for tourists and locals, and had accordingly created “jobs, vibrancy and new economies” for regional areas.

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Distilleries had also become an anchor for other businesses, including restaurants and retail shops.

“All of this combines to have a positive impact on real estate in these areas,” Waters says.

Bright’s median house price has rocketed 48.3% to $571,000 since Reed & Co Distillery opened in 2016, REIV figures show.

Luke Jacques enjoying a gin at Kyneton’s Animus Distillery. Picture: Jay Town

Bellarine Peninsula town Curlewis, home to Suter & Sons, posted 28.2 per cent gains in the same period to reach a $500,000 median and the Mornington Peninsula’s Dromana, site of Bass & Flinders, jumped 26.9 per cent to hit $791,500.

House medians have also risen more than 20 per cent in Healesville (Four Pillars Gin), Kyneton (Animus Distillery), Drysdale (The Whiskery) and Mildura (Fossey’s Gin) since 2016. The gains topped 15 per cent in Queenscliff (Queenscliff Distillery) and Ballarat suburb Alfredton (Kilderkin Distillery).

Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria chief executive Paul Guerra said as the flourishing distillery sector became “a force in its own right”, its success was flowing through to towns’ property markets and economies.

Barry Plant Healesville director Jenny Webb says Four Pillars, along with other tourist attractions, has raised the Yarra Ranges town’s profile.

This has contributed to Healesville’s stellar price growth in recent years, along with the town’s accessibility to the city via freeways, affordable housing and beautiful setting that offered “a sense of being in the country”, Webb says.

Four Pillars is a Victorian gin behemoth.

In Kyneton, Animus Distillery employs 13 people, most of them locals, and has become a tourist attraction where visitors can eat and drink, observe the distillation process, and make their own gin.

Cameron MacKenzie started Four Pillars gin with two business partners.

Rob Turner, Luke Jacques, Aaron Robinson and Joel Wilson founded Animus in 2015 — when a gin “renaissance” was kicking off — and brought the business to Kyneton about two years later.

“There were lots of pubs and restaurants, but there wasn’t a place to go for pre-dinner drinks,” Turner says.

“We’ve since noticed further wine bars and cocktail venues have started to pop up in Kyneton and the Macedon Ranges.

“We like to think we add another reason for people to visit the town.”