From Tamborine Mountain to Shanghai: Wattle Toffee Goes Global
Tamborine Mountain Distillery at the 2023 China International Import Expo
From a small distillery in the Gold Coast Hinterland to one of the world's largest trade shows.
In November 2023, Tamborine Mountain Distillery travelled to Shanghai as one of 28 Queensland companies represented at the China International Import Expo (CIIE).
Our team joined Queensland food and beverage producers at the Taste of Queensland pavilion, sharing our spirits, our distillery and a little piece of Tamborine Mountain with visitors from around the world.
And one bottle in particular had quite a journey.
Our Wattle Toffee Liqueur made its way from Tamborine Mountain to the table of the Queensland-Shanghai Sister State celebrations.
Taking Tamborine Mountain to Shanghai
The 2023 China International Import Expo brought together exhibitors and visitors from around the world, with Queensland represented by producers across food, beverages and other industries.
Tamborine Mountain Distillery was represented by our International Sales Manager, Nerissa Jiang, who spent the event introducing visitors to our spirits and liqueurs — and to the place they come from.
The Queensland pavilion didn't just showcase products.
Large images of the Tamborine Mountain Distillery and nearby Curtis Falls helped put a landscape behind the bottles, giving visitors in Shanghai a glimpse of the mountain we call home.
Thousands of Visitors — and Plenty of Tastings
For Nerissa, the expo meant days of conversations, tastings and introductions.
Visitors passing through the Queensland pavilion had the opportunity to discover Australian spirits and liqueurs they may never have encountered before.
For our team back on Tamborine Mountain, seeing our bottles being poured on the other side of the world was a pretty special sight.
General Manager and Head Distiller Gordon Chalmers summed up the team's reaction at the time:
“It was fantastic to see tens of thousands of visitors passing by our stand and stop to taste our award-winning spirits and liqueurs.”
300 Bottles of Wattle Toffee Head to the Banquet
Then came one of our favourite moments of the trip.
The Queensland Government selected 300 bottles of Tamborine Mountain Distillery's Wattle Toffee Liqueur as gifts for attendees of the Queensland-Shanghai Sister State banquet.
For a liqueur with such a distinctly Australian flavour story, it was an extraordinary place for it to end up.
Our Wattle Toffee combines the roasted, nutty character of wattleseed with smooth toffee sweetness — a flavour that has become a longstanding part of the TMD range.
And for one evening in Shanghai, 300 bottles were helping tell a little piece of that story.
► DISCOVER WATTLE TOFFEE LIQUEUR
From the Scenic Rim to the World
International trade shows are about business, of course.
But for a regional distillery, they're also an opportunity to introduce people to the place behind the product.
Every conversation about a bottle becomes a conversation about Tamborine Mountain.
About the Scenic Rim.
About Australian ingredients.
And about a distillery that has been making spirits and liqueurs in the Queensland hinterland since 1993.
That's what made Shanghai particularly memorable for us.
We weren't simply taking bottles overseas.
We were taking a little piece of Tamborine Mountain with us.
The Journey Continues
Wattle Toffee has travelled a long way from Tamborine Mountain, but you don't have to.
You can discover it — along with the rest of our spirits and liqueurs — right here at the distillery.
And when you taste it, there's a rather nice story to go with the bottle.
Once upon a time, 300 of them went to Shanghai.
