Økar: an aperitivo measured in kilograms, not bottles
Two winemakers in a 1920s apple shed in the Adelaide Hills make a bitter aperitivo from what this country grows and undervalues. We asked Brendan Carter what is really in the bottle, and why he counts it the way he does.
Most distilleries will tell you how many bottles they sold last year. Applewood, in the Adelaide Hills, would rather tell you how many kilograms of native produce they bought. For every thousand litres of Økar, their bitter aperitivo, about 200 kilograms of Australian native produce goes into the making of it. It is an odd number to lead with. The longer we spent with the bottle, the more it explained.
We spend our mornings with Australian plants in water: banksia, eucalyptus, paper daisy, cut and conditioned before the city is awake. What we almost never do is taste them. So when we went looking for a bottle to sit beside the natives on our gift shelf, we wanted one made by people who think about this country's plants the way we do, as material with a character of its own rather than a flavour of the month. We found two winemakers in the Adelaide Hills, and we wrote to them with questions. Brendan Carter wrote back.
Start with the wine
Most bitter aperitivi are built on a neutral spirit. Økar is built on a white wine base, mostly Riverland Vermentino, and when you ask Carter why, you get an answer about surplus before you get one about flavour.
“Australia grows more good wine than it can sell, and Riverland Vermentino is some of the most undervalued of it,” he told us. “So we’d rather put that fruit to work than see it go to waste.”
The Riverland is the irrigated stretch of the Murray in South Australia’s east that grows more of this country’s wine than any other region, and Vermentino is a Mediterranean grape that suits the heat there. That it is undervalued says more about the market than it does about the grape.
Then the flavour. “It’s fresh and a little savoury with good natural acidity,” Carter says, “which gives Økar a clean, bright backbone and leaves room for the bitter roots and the native fruit.”
That is the difference you taste. A neutral spirit carries botanicals cleanly and brings nothing of its own. A wine base brings weight, acidity and a little fruit, so Økar drinks rounder and softer than the Italian bitters it sits beside, without the hard alcoholic edge you get when high-proof spirit meets bitter roots. It is a slower, more expensive way to make an aperitivo. It is also the reason Økar does not taste like an imitation of anything.
The hallmark botanical
If the wine is the backbone, riberry is the signature, and it has been in Økar from the start.
Riberry is a lilly pilly. To most of us lilly pilly is a hedge, the dense green wall along a driveway that gets clipped twice a year and never gets a second thought. Its rainforest cousin grows in the subtropics of northern New South Wales and Queensland, and carries small, tart, pink fruit.
“We chose it for its tartness and that clove-and-cinnamon spice,” Carter says, “which sits really nicely against the gentian and rhubarb root.”
Gentian and rhubarb root are the classical bittering agents of the amaro tradition, the part of the recipe that reaches back to Italy. Riberry is what makes Økar an Australian drink rather than an Italian one with an accent. Davidson plum, a rainforest plum with a deep, stewed sourness, darkens the middle, and strawberry gum, a eucalypt whose leaves really do smell of berries, lifts the finish into something faintly and unmistakably of here. It is the note people cannot place on the first sip and go looking for on the second.
Bittersweet, but bright with it. Most bitters ask you to work for the pleasure. This one meets you halfway.
What happens to the rest
Here is the part of Carter’s reply we have not stopped thinking about.
Two hundred kilograms per thousand litres is four times what goes into Applewood’s gin, which makes Økar the product in their range that puts the most Australian plant material to work. Carter’s reason for counting it is not sentiment. “The more native produce we use, the greater the incentive for growers to put it in the ground, because it actually has a pathway to market.”
Then he said something about farming that reaches well past native food.
“A-grade produce finds its way into A-grade uses,” he wrote, “but people don’t often talk about what happens to the B, C, D and E-grade produce, from any kind of farmer.” For most farmers, he says, there are pathways to market right down to partial profitability or cost recovery: somewhere for the lesser grades to go. The native foods industry does not have that depth, and he sees it as one of the biggest limiting factors on the whole industry. “There’s a fair degree of value-add enterprise out there to take A-grade produce, but not a lot of incentive to take anything else.”
We recognised the problem from the other side of the counter. Flowers are graded too, and the first-grade stems get the premium; any grower will tell you what the seconds are worth. A market that only wants the best of anything is a market that quietly tells people not to grow it. Which is why we think the best thing about Økar is not how it tastes, and we say that about a drink we like a great deal.
That is what the kilograms are for. Bottles sold is the number every distillery reports. Kilograms of native produce bought is a number that only goes up if you keep doing the harder thing, and only goes down when you cut a corner.
“Australia grows more good wine than it can sell.”
The shed in the Hills
Brendan and Laura Carter are trained winemakers. The still arrived at the end of 2011, distilling started in 2012, and it took another three years of trial after trial before the first Applewood gin was judged worth releasing. Nobody was waiting for it, which is rather the point. They work out of the Old Gumeracha Cold Stores, a 1920s shed that once kept the district’s apples cold, about 40 minutes from Adelaide on Peramangk Country. The distillery is named for the applewood these hills grew.
Økar is made by a certified B Corp. Carter was precise on that point too: the certification sits with the company, not with the bottle, and “made by a certified B Corp” is the accurate way to say it. The company’s own framing of the badge is the thing worth repeating. It does not make them the most sustainable distillery, they say, “not by a country mile”. What it does is make them the most transparent. Their sustainability ledger is public, live and unedited, including the parts that do not flatter, and last year it reported 57% of purchasing from suppliers within 80 kilometres, against a target of 50.
They also acknowledge, on their own site, the Peramangk people as traditional owners of the land they distil on, and the other First Nations peoples whose Country grows the botanicals they work with, stating plainly that sovereignty was never ceded.
Native ingredients are the part of Australian food and drink most easily flattened into a marketing story. A maker who names the Country the botanicals come from, publishes the unflattering numbers beside the flattering ones, and buys close to home at a measurable rate is doing the harder version of the job. If you are ever out that way, Bottle Shock, their place on Victoria Street in Gumeracha, is open Friday to Monday.
How we drink it
Three ways, in the order we reach for them.
| The serve | What is in it | When it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Økar spritz | 45ml Økar, soda to taste, ice, orange slice | A warm afternoon, or anyone who wants a real drink that is not a heavy one |
| Økar Negroni | 30ml Økar, 30ml gin, 30ml sweet vermouth, orange peel | After work, cooler months, the drinker who already has a favourite Negroni |
| Økar and sparkling | 45ml Økar topped with dry sparkling wine | The first drink of a dinner party, when you want the table to notice |
For the Negroni, which is the serve Applewood themselves point to:
- Fill a rocks glass to the top with ice, or use one large cube.
- Add 30ml Økar, 30ml gin and 30ml sweet vermouth. Equal parts, as always.
- Stir for about 20 seconds. Do not shake it.
- Express a strip of orange peel over the surface, then drop it in.
The difference from a standard Negroni is immediate. It is softer through the middle and the finish carries that eucalypt lift, so the drink reads as familiar and local at the same time. If you are giving Økar to someone who already makes Negronis, this is the sentence to write on the card.
Keep the bottle upright, out of direct sun, and refrigerate it once it is open.
Who it is for
The person who likes having something interesting on the table. Not the collector, and not the person who wants the most expensive bottle. The one who pours a drink for a guest and enjoys explaining what it is. Økar gives them a story that is theirs to tell: two winemakers in an old apple shed, a wine the market did not want enough, a lilly pilly from the rainforest, a eucalypt that smells of strawberries.
It sits beside Australian natives for a reason. We pair it with Broome, our banksia, paper daisy and eucalyptus design, because the scent of the arrangement and the finish of the drink are, improbably, the same family. If the natives are new to you, our guide to Australian native flowers is the place to start. The Aperitif is the version we would send: Broome, the bottle, and nine Koko Black pralines between the two.
An aperitivo that tastes like where it is from.
Økar Bitter Aperitivo, 700mL, 21% ABV, from $55. See Økar on the shelf →
This is the first of a series on the makers whose work sits beside our flowers: what they choose, how they work, and why it tastes or smells or feels the way it does. Flowers, fragrance, food and drink, all of it the same question in different materials.
Frequently asked questions
Where is Økar made?
In Gumeracha, in the Adelaide Hills, about 40 minutes from Adelaide, on Peramangk Country. Applewood Distillery works out of the Old Gumeracha Cold Stores, a 1920s shed that once kept the district’s apples cold.
What is Økar made from?
A white wine base, mostly Riverland Vermentino, with riberry as the hallmark native botanical alongside Davidson plum and strawberry gum, and gentian and rhubarb root for the bitterness. It is bottled at 21% ABV in 700mL.
Is Økar the same as Campari?
No. Both are bitter aperitivi and both work in a Negroni, but Økar is made in the Adelaide Hills on a wine base with Australian native botanicals, and it is softer and rounder in the mouth. It is also lower in alcohol at 21% ABV.
Can I send alcohol with flowers in Australia?
Yes, with conditions. Under liquor licence rules the alcohol must be purchased together with flowers, the value of the liquor must not exceed 50% of the total gift value, and someone aged 18 or over must be available to accept the delivery.
How long does Økar keep once opened?
Refrigerate it after opening and it will hold its character for several months. Stored upright and out of direct sunlight, an unopened bottle keeps indefinitely.
Hero photograph: Allan Francis / Unsplash. Eucalypt: Raelle Cameron / Unsplash. Lilly pilly: Jeffry Surianto / Pexels. Bottle photograph courtesy of Applewood Distillery. Distillery and maker photography to come.
