caroline springs Beer, food, wine & spirits festival

Brookvale Union is a Sydney-founded Australian beverage brand, launched by parent brewery 4 Pines with a ginger beer that quickly became the country’s top-selling ginger beer. Known for its playful “Quality Nonsense” branding, the range has since grown to include a spiced rum premix, alcoholic iced tea, lemon lime and bitters, and a low-sugar ginger beer.

4 Pines Brewing Company was founded in 2008 by father-and-son team Steve and Jaron Mitchell, opening as a single brewpub in Manly, Sydney, and named after four pine trees removed from the local foreshore during World War II. Now B-Corp certified, the brewery produces a full range of craft beers from Japanese-style lagers to stouts, runs venues across NSW, Victoria and Queensland.

Never Never Distilling Co is an Adelaide-founded gin distillery started in 2017 by Tim Boast, George Georgiadis and Sean Baxter, who began production from a tiny 16-square-metre garage before scaling up to a new McLaren Vale distillery in 2020. Named after the vast, remote “Never Never” outback, their range includes the award-winning Triple Juniper and Southern Strength gins, alongside limited releases like Juniper Freak and Ginache.

Smirnoff, the world’s best-selling vodka brand owned by Diageo, has built out a strong ready-to-drink presence through its Ice and Crush ranges. Smirnoff Ice launched in 1999 as one of the original vodka-based “malternatives” and remains a nostalgic favourite, now sold in variants like Double Black Raspberry Crush. Smirnoff Crush is the newer, fruit-forward line, a 6% canned range in a range of flavours.