Distillery Spotlight: Iron Balls Distillery 

Region: Bangkok, Thailand 

Note: Our Distillery Spotlight articles breaks down how each distillery's unique process results in the distinctive flavour profiles of their spirit. Click here to uncover the stories behind more of your favourite brands and distilleries. 

You always have options if you have balls.

It truly takes some real balls to start a craft gin distillery from the ground up in Thailand, without neither prior distilling experience nor the backing of a deep-pocketed spirits conglomerate. The process of setting up a distillery and a brand from scratch can itself involve huge capital outlays and years of R&D. Add to that a host of other challenges specific to Thailand. First off, you’ve got to get past a ton of bureaucratic red tape in order to secure a rare distilling license. Plus, the uncertainty of knowing that even if you do finally manage to get a product out, there’s no guarantee that your product may find sufficient demand, especially in a domestic Thai market where consumers often still carry that perception that any alcohol made in Thailand is “low-quality”.

And yet, that’s exactly what Ashley Sutton did.

In 2015, after three and a half years of grueling work, the Australian bar designer turned distiller finally launched Iron Balls Gin, a micro-distillery located right in the heart of Bangkok, Thailand. 

Iron Balls Gin is unique and eye-catching in many respects. For starters, it’s one of the first craft gin distilleries that has emerged from Thailand in recent years (more on why this is unusual later). Secondly, unlike most popular and commonly known gins on the market today that are produced from on a neutral grain spirit, Iron Balls Gin is made from a base spirit of distilled pineapples and coconuts, both locally grown in Thailand. This lends to a tropical, fruity base that is quite distinctive to the brand.

“You Always Have Options If You Have Balls”

But perhaps what really gets people’s eyebrows raised at first glance is the brand’s straight-talking name and branding. Unapologetically called “Iron Balls”, each bottle from the distillery comes with a tag imploring the consumer to “Grab Life by The Balls”. For added emphasis, Sutton’s own saying “You always options if you have balls” is boldly emblazoned across the label.

A cynic might say this just a marketing gimmick designed for shock value. But dwelve deeper into the distillery’s origins, and it becomes clear that the name Iron Balls is genuinely emblematic of Sutton’s philosophy towards life and aspirations for the brand.

The enigmatic Ashley Sutton (Image source: Lifestyle Asia)

Back when the idea for Iron Balls was first conceived, Sutton had already made a pretty big name for himself as “Bangkok’s golden boy of interior design” – the mastermind behind steampunk wonderland aesthetics of The Iron Fairies, Maggie Choo’s and Mr Jones’ Orphanage.

Some of Ash Sutton's designs, clockwise from left: The Iron Fairies, J. Boroski, Ophelia, Maggie Choo's (Image sources: Ashley Sutton Designs, Inspironaut)

At this point, the comfortable, safer choice for Sutton would have been to cruise on with the income he was already pulling via his interior design endeavours. Yet, if it was something the enigmatic Sutton always made clear, it was his nonchalance for designing and running bars. (When asked about his bars in the past, the straight-talking Australian has been quoted as calling some of them “just another bar”, or more colourfully, “shitholes”.)

It is no surprise then that one day, itching for a different kind of creative challenge, Sutton promptly decided to gut out the fountain feature inside another small bar he owned, then called AR Sutton Engineering, in order to install his very own distillery in its place. When he shared his plans with Carson Quinn, today the Head Distiller and Global Brand Ambassador for Iron Balls, Quinn naturally remarked that he was a “complete lunatic”. 

Carson Quinn (Image source: Iron Balls Official)

Yet Sutton had his mind set. Having already ordered over $80,000 worth of equipment from Germany to be shipped over to Bangkok, there was no going back. And despite Quinn’s initial ambivalence, this wasn’t just some impulse online shopping buy. The duo bit the bullet and took the risk, sparking off a multi-year venture to create the Iron Balls Gin brand we know of today.

In an illuminating interview on the podcast Cocktails Distilled, Quinn reflected on the genesis of the brand’s name:

“Iron Balls was one of these things, like we worked on it for so many years with no income, and spent all of our money and we were living, basically, in subpar living arrangements. He came up with the idea of Iron Balls, is you always have options if you have balls. If you can take risks and you can push your way forward, there's always going to be options. If you're meek and you're scared and you're not going to go for it, then, yeah, your options are pretty limited.”

The Ultimate Ball Buster: Thai Liquor Laws

It may be surprising to know that one of the biggest challenges Sutton and Quinn encountered didn’t even have anything to do with the actual process of gin-making. Rather, it concerned the difficulties of obtaining a license to operate.

For small-time producers like Iron Balls, Thai liquor locals can be - plainly put - a real ball buster.

Currently, the Thai spirits industry operates as a monopoly, with one company, the Sirivadhanabhakdi family-owned Thai Beverage, responsible for around 90% of local spirit products. To protect this monopoly, local liquor regulations impose stricter rules that render most small-scale liquor operations unviable, one of which prevents newcomers from producing distilled brown spirits, such as whisky or rum. As a result, Sutton and Quinn knew they could only produce clear spirits like gin or vodka.

Trying to secure a distilling license in Thailand is certainly not for the faint of heart. (Image source: Iron Balls Official)

Yet even obtaining a license for that was an uphill battle, marked by repeated fruitless visits to the licensing office. One day however, the duo met a female government official who advised them that they could get a license if they formed a partnership with a local Thai. While the specifics are unknown, this was likely made possible due to an obscure provision under the One Tambon One Product (OTOP) program, founded in 2001 to promote village industries.

Hope restored, the duo approached the local Thai farmer whom they had been sourcing their pineapples and coconuts from. Thankfully, the farmer was agreeable to forming a partnership, and at long last, they managed to bust through the bureaucracy and secure their license. According to Sutton, theirs is the first such license granted in 31 years.

Thailand's Alcohol Beverage Control Act stipulates strict rules around the marketing and promotion of alcohol by both manufacturers and consumers alike, forcing spirit producers to toe a narrow line. Laws can be so strict that some fans of Blackpink's Lisa, the Ambassador of Chivas Regal, found themselves under investigation for resharing photos from Lisa's Chivas Regal ad campaign on their personal social media accounts. (Image source: Chivas Regal)

Yet the battle was far from over, as there were a host of other restrictions the duo had to contend with. A case in point: under Section 32 of the Alcohol Beverage Control Act, spirits producers are banned from displaying the name of the alcohol on the bottle labels. This meant that the duo were not allowed to print the words “Gin” on their label, and its also why Iron Balls Gin bottle labels today display the words “engineered alcohol” rather than “gin” outright.

Quinn initially tried to side step this ruling through some creative design. He suggested taking the “G-I-N” from the word “engineered”, moving that down, and displaying it with a different font or colour. Yet, even that design tweak proved too cheeky for local officials, who promptly shut that idea down.

Meticulously Made, from Southeast Asia

Don’t mistake Sutton and Quinn’s too-cool-for-school mannerisms as a lack of attention to detail, because the process of creating each batch of Iron Balls Gin is highly labor and time intensive.

It begins when each new haul of fresh pineapples and coconuts is delivered to the distillery. Workers then get to work chopping up the husks and carving up the best bits to go into the mash. This then sets off the next step, and perhaps the most time-consuming: fermentation.

Prepping the pineapples by hand. (Image source: Iron Balls Official)

Iron Balls Distillery does their own fermentation in house, departing once again from convention as most gin producers eschew this step due to the amount of space the process requires and the volatility it invites. The pineapple and coconut mixture is left to ferment for about 10 days, during which, as Quinn explains, the “slightest change in temperature can change how your fermentation process is going to happen.” As a result, Quinn observes subtle differences in each batch, with some leaning more tropical while others lean more herbal and juniper-heavy. 

After fermentation, the fermented mash is milky and toasty. The product is then left to rest for one or two days, during which the yeast dies and the mixture is clarified. The team then puts the mixture through an initial maceration with Iron Balls’ unique blend of botanicals. The exact proportions and components are a closely guarded secret, but what we do know is that it contains lemongrass, ginger, cardamom, orange skins and juniper. The botanicals are steeped for a minimum of seven days at room temperature, as natural infusion in Bangkok’s tropical climate best allows for the flavour essences to be imparted without altering the mash’s primal state.

Iron Balls distillery utilises a hybrid distillation still, MacGyver-ed by Ash Sutton himself. (Image source: Iron Balls Official)

Once ready for distillation, freshly pulped pineapples are placed at the base of the still before the mash is added to it. A second process of botanical infusion will now occur during distillation, helping to eek out more of the botanicals’ aromas and flavours. This takes place via vapour infusion, with a basket of botanicals hung at the top of the still. Each batch is slowly heated, during which the team is on-guard to ensure the fresh pineapples in the pot still don’t overheat – as it would otherwise result in an undesirable flavour of burnt sugar!

As a micro-distillery with limited space and equipment, the team handmakes all their products in small batches. When they first begin, the team could only produce 250 small bottles per batch, the process has been continually refined and streamlined. Today, the distillery is able to produce an estimated 3,000 full-sized bottles per month.

With all this attention paid to every detail, would it even surprise you anymore if I told you each bottle is still hand labelled and roped? This is likely just as much as function of their team’s heart and passion, as it is of the fact that their uniquely customised nautical inspired bottle shape (a homage to Sutton's role as a unofficial pirate) isn't compatible for use with any automated labelling machine. 

Our Take

(Image source: Iron Balls Official)

As for how Iron Balls Gin tastes? Despite the emphatic and assertive name, you may find the spirit to be remarkably approachable and easy-going, both in a G&T and drunk neat.

The use of pineapples and coconuts for the base spirit translates into a distinctively tropical flavour profile, with sweeter notes of 4D dried mangos and pineapples at the fore. Drinkers tend to pick up lemongrass on the nose, before the ginger kicks in on the palette, adding a slight heat that is promptly mellowed out by a mild coconut note. While juniper is present, it’s not as juniper-heavy as gin lovers would often expect from the more traditional gins.

Truly, it may just have to command a category of its own!

And I’m not alone in appreciating this spirit. Iron Balls Gin has been gaining renown and snapping up international awards like the Best Gin 2021 at the International Wines and Spirits Competition (IWSC) and Gold Medal in the Ultra-Premium Round of The Gin Masters 2021.

And would you expect anything less from the maverick minds behind the Iron Balls Distillery?

The road to bootstrapping and running this micro-distillery in Thailand has been paved with red tape, over 700 experimental batches, and 2,000 trial distillation runs. Yet with guts, gumption and iron balls, Sutton and his team has managed to create a truly unique product that puts Thailand on the map, turning heads even in an oversaturated gin market.

@lotusroot518