Meet Anne Rutter: The Artist Behind Tamborine Mountain Distillery’s Labels
From a Chance Meeting in 2004 to Decades of Artwork for the Distillery
Look closely at some of Tamborine Mountain Distillery's labels, and you'll discover another part of our story: Original artwork by Australian artist Anne Rutter.
Anne's relationship with the Distillery began in 2004 with a chance lunchtime meeting with our co-founder Michael Ward. What followed was more than two decades of paintings, botanical illustrations and label designs — including artwork for Australian Herbal Liqueur, Moulin Rooz Absinthe and a collection of other TMD releases.
But strangely enough, Anne originally came to the Distillery hoping for a completely different job.
She wanted to paint our bottles.
A Chance Meeting on Tamborine Mountain
We'll let Anne tell the story in her own words.
“In 2004 I was enjoying lunch with some friends at a restaurant in the tropical oasis of Tamborine Mountain, Queensland, when this bubbly, feisty little man — who looked a bit like Santa — bounced up to my friend Gabi to say ‘G'day!’
She introduced me to Michael Ward as ‘such a character’ and we hit it off immediately.”
During lunch, Anne's friend Gabi asked what she planned to do now that she'd moved to the Mountain.
Gabi knew Anne was an artist. She also knew that Michael and his wife Alla owned Tamborine Mountain Distillery — and that Alla hand-painted the Distillery's bottles herself.
So she made a suggestion.
Why not ask whether Alla needed some help?
The Job Anne Didn't Get
Anne had never seen Alla's hand-painted bottles, but she wasn't going to arrive empty-handed.
She practised by painting detailed designs onto a port bottle and some wine bottles before heading to the Distillery to show Michael what she could do.
That's when she saw Alla's distinctive folk artwork for the first time.
Michael looked at Anne's beautifully detailed bottles and immediately identified a problem.
“Oh, they are way too detailed for what we do. How long did one take you to do?”
Anne hadn't timed herself.
Michael had another question.
“Yes, but can you paint one in two minutes? That's how long it takes Alla to do one. Are you that good?”
Anne's answer?
“Yep. I'd just need to practise!”
She didn't get the bottle-painting job.
But Michael remembered her artwork.
And that turned out to be considerably more important.
The Phone Call That Started It All
Not long afterwards, Anne and her family moved to the UK.
Then one morning, the phone rang.
It was Michael.
“Darling, I have been trying to track you down. Gabi said you'd left the country! Luckily, she gave me your number — we want to commission you to paint a label for us. Can you do it?”
Anne's response was immediate.
“Absobloodylutely! You know how to make a girl's day. What do you need?”
That commission became the artwork for our Australian Herbal Liqueur.
Working through correspondence between Australia and the UK, Anne created the detailed Australian bushland painting that would become part of the product's identity.
It was the beginning of a creative relationship that would continue for years.
Creating the Artwork for Moulin Rooz
Another significant commission followed when Anne was asked to create artwork for one of the Distillery's most distinctive ranges.
Moulin Rooz.
The name itself came from Michael's playful take on Moulin Rouge, and Anne was given the opportunity to develop artwork for the brand.
Anne remembers:
“Under their direction the ‘Moulin Rooz’ brand was born — his little wordplay on Moulin Rouge.
I continued to paint other botanical flowers and plants for their delicious liqueurs whilst having the best job in the world as one of the staff in their boutique shop and tasting room. Life just didn't get better than that!”
Anne wasn't simply an artist working somewhere else and sending us paintings.
For a time, she was also part of everyday life at the Distillery.
That connection between artist, product and place is one of the reasons her work became such a natural part of TMD's visual identity.
A New Chapter for the Distillery — and for Anne
Life eventually took Anne away from her role in the tasting room, but she continued creating artwork for Tamborine Mountain Distillery.
Then the Distillery itself entered a new chapter.
In October 2017, Michael and Alla Ward retired and Gordon Chalmers and Shumei Hou took over Tamborine Mountain Distillery.
The ownership changed.
Anne's connection with the Distillery didn't.
She was later invited back to create a series of labels for a limited-edition Eau de Vie collection under the Moulin Rooz range.
For Anne, it was an opportunity to continue a creative relationship that had begun with that chance meeting all those years earlier.
“It is with pure pleasure that I continue to produce artwork at their request.
I was so happy when I was asked if I would consider being the Distillery's resident artist — my ‘dream job’, as they say.
When you do something you love, you never work a day in your life.
Thank you, Tamborine Mountain Distillery. It is an honour to be part of your team.” — Anne Rutter
More Than a Label
It's easy to look at a bottle and think of the label as packaging.
For us, many of these paintings are something more.
They're part of the history of Tamborine Mountain Distillery.
Alla's hand-painted bottles established an artistic tradition from the earliest years of the Distillery. Anne's detailed paintings brought another artistic style to our labels and helped give individual liqueurs and ranges their own visual stories.
And behind those paintings are real people.
A chance lunch.
A bottle-painting job that didn't quite happen.
A phone call across the world.
And an artist who became part of the Distillery family.
See Anne Rutter's Original Artwork at the Distillery
Today, visitors can see Anne Rutter's original artwork on display in our Tamborine Mountain tasting room.
So next time you're here, take a closer look at the paintings — and then look for the stories they've become part of on our bottles.
Because at Tamborine Mountain Distillery, sometimes what's on the bottle has almost as much of a story as what's inside it.
