Twenty Third Street Distillery

Where the Murray Meets the Still

Renmark sits at the western edge of the Riverland, a stretch of South Australia defined less by tourism infrastructure than by production: stone fruit, citrus, and above all, grapes. The Murray River has shaped this town's agricultural identity for over a century, and the spirit-making tradition here runs parallel to its winemaking one. In that context, Twenty Third Street Distillery is not an outlier but a logical extension of the region's relationship with fermentation and distillation. The address alone — Twentythird St, Renmark — anchors it to a town that most Australian drinkers know by reputation rather than by visit, which is part of what makes the 2025 Pearl 2 Star Prestige rating a meaningful signal. Recognition at that tier tends to reward producers who have built something durable, not those chasing metropolitan attention.

The Riverland Distilling Tradition

The Riverland's identity as a spirit-producing region is inseparable from its viticultural history. The area around Renmark has long supplied grapes to major South Australian producers, and the shift toward estate distillation here mirrors a pattern visible across Australian wine regions over the past two decades: producers with direct access to agricultural raw materials moving into spirits as a natural adjacency. Grape-based spirits , brandy, eau de vie, and more recently gin and vodka made with grape-neutral bases , have a longer local history than many visitors assume. The Riverland's warm continental climate, with hot summers and cool nights along the river corridor, produces fruit with high sugar content and concentrated character, factors that translate directly into distillate quality.

That regional context matters when assessing where Twenty Third Street sits among its peers. Producers like St Agnes Distillery, also based in Renmark, represent the older generation of Riverland spirit-making, with a brandy lineage stretching back decades. Angove Family Winemakers, another Renmark institution, illustrates how multi-generational producers in this corridor have maintained relevance by evolving their production mix. Twenty Third Street operates in a more contemporary register, with the 2025 prestige recognition suggesting it has achieved sufficient consistency to be benchmarked against Australia's broader craft distilling tier.

A Prestige Rating and What It Implies

The Pearl 2 Star Prestige designation awarded in 2025 places Twenty Third Street within a small cohort of Australian producers recognised for output quality at a level above standard category ratings. Pearl-tier ratings in Australian drinks recognition systems generally require demonstrated excellence across multiple expressions or vintages, not a single standout product. For a Riverland-based distillery, that kind of recognition carries particular weight because the region does not have the concentrated critical infrastructure of, say, a Barossa Valley or McLaren Vale producer. Attention has to be earned on the strength of what's in the bottle rather than on proximity to media and hospitality networks.

By comparison, producers operating at a similar prestige level in adjacent regions , such as Bird in Hand in Adelaide Hills or Blue Pyrenees Estate in Pyrenees , benefit from stronger visitor economies and denser wine tourism networks. Twenty Third Street's rating, achieved from a town 250 kilometres northeast of Adelaide, reflects a different kind of credibility: production-led rather than profile-led.

The Tasting Experience in Context

Craft distillery tasting rooms in regional Australia have evolved considerably over the past decade. The earlier model, common in the 2010s, offered a brief counter pour and a retail shelf. The current generation of serious producers has moved toward structured tastings, guided format sessions, and deeper engagement with provenance narratives. The Riverland, slower to develop tourism infrastructure than more visited regions, has its own version of this shift, driven partly by the region's relative remoteness and partly by the depth of agricultural story available to tell.

A visit to a distillery operating at Twenty Third Street's recognition level in a town like Renmark is, by its nature, a more deliberate commitment than dropping into a cellar door on a weekend in the Barossa. That deliberateness tends to self-select a visitor who arrives with genuine curiosity rather than passing interest, and distilleries in this category often calibrate their hospitality accordingly. The format rewards engagement: questions about process, raw material sourcing, and the regional character of the base ingredients tend to unlock more from a tasting experience than passive sampling.

For context on what the broader Australian craft distilling tier looks like, Archie Rose Distilling Co in Sydney represents the metropolitan end of the prestige craft spectrum, with a high-volume tasting room and extensive public programming. Twenty Third Street operates at the opposite end of that geographic and scale spectrum, where the experience is shaped more by the surrounding agricultural environment than by urban hospitality production values.

Placing Renmark on the Australian Spirits Map

For Australian spirit enthusiasts building an itinerary around production-focused visits, the Riverland offers something genuinely different from the cellar-door circuits of established wine regions. The Murray River towns , Renmark, Berri, Loxton , have a working-town character that contrasts sharply with the manicured tourism villages of the Clare Valley or Coonawarra. That character is part of the appeal for visitors who prefer direct engagement with producers over polished hospitality experiences.

Internationally, the parallel would be visiting a Speyside distillery in a working Scottish town rather than a purpose-built visitor centre, or exploring a small-production brandy house in Cognac's outer communes rather than the grand maisons on the main circuit. Places like Aberlour in Aberlour or Abadía Retuerta in Sardón de Duero attract visitors precisely because their location demands intention. The Riverland operates on a similar logic.

Other Australian producers worth benchmarking against for regional context include All Saints Estate in Rutherglen, which has built a substantial visitor experience around a comparably remote location, and Leading's Wines in Great Western, which has maintained critical credibility from a similarly untrafficked regional base. Bass Phillip in Gippsland offers another model: a producer whose prestige rests almost entirely on what goes into the bottle, with limited concessions to tourism infrastructure.

Planning a Visit

Renmark is approximately 250 kilometres northeast of Adelaide via the Sturt Highway, making it a full-day drive or a natural stop on a longer Riverland circuit. The town has accommodation options suited to an overnight stay, and the surrounding region offers enough additional producers and river-based activities to anchor a two-day itinerary. For visitors approaching from the east, Renmark sits on a natural route between the Victorian Riverina and Adelaide. Current details on hours and booking arrangements for Twenty Third Street are leading confirmed directly, as operational formats for craft distilleries at this level can vary seasonally.

For a fuller picture of what Renmark offers, EP Club covers the region across multiple categories: our full Renmark restaurants guide, our full Renmark hotels guide, our full Renmark bars guide, our full Renmark wineries guide, and our full Renmark experiences guide map the town's wider offer for a planned visit.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Twenty Third Street Distillery known for?

Twenty Third Street Distillery is recognised as one of Renmark's notable craft spirit producers, earning a Pearl 2 Star Prestige rating in 2025. It operates within the Riverland's established tradition of grape-based spirit production, a category with deep roots in the Murray River corridor of South Australia. Its location in Renmark, alongside producers such as St Agnes Distillery and Angove Family Winemakers, places it within one of Australia's longest-standing regional production communities.

What wine is Twenty Third Street Distillery famous for?

Twenty Third Street is primarily a distillery rather than a winery, though the Riverland region it occupies has deep viticultural roots that inform its spirit production. The 2025 Pearl 2 Star Prestige award recognises its standing in the Australian craft spirits tier. For winery-specific offerings in the Renmark area, our full Renmark wineries guide covers the region's wine producers in detail.