{"id":868374,"date":"2026-08-25T23:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/868374\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T23:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:06:17","slug":"chris-hemsworth-buys-stake-in-sydney-whisky-distillery-archie-rose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/868374\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Hemsworth buys stake in Sydney whisky distillery Archie Rose"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere\u2019s no better guy\u201d to help the booze brand take its whisky global, says the Sydney distillery\u2019s founder.<\/p>\n

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Chris Hemsworth has landed a major role in what could be the next international blockbuster, but it\u2019s not with Universal Pictures or Disney.<\/p>\n

The Hollywood actor, best known for playing Thor in the Marvel movies, has joined founder Will Edwards as co-owner of Australian distillery Archie Rose. <\/p>\n

Hemsworth, who was born in Melbourne and grew up in the outback town of Bulman in the Northern Territory, owns an undisclosed stake in Australia\u2019s most awarded distillery, and will play a central role in pushing the Australian-made spirits brand into global markets, beginning with the United States at the end of the year. <\/p>\n

\"ArchieArchie Rose co-owners Chris Hemsworth and Will Edwards. Timothy Ashton<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a fan of Archie Rose for a long time,\u201d Hemsworth said in a statement. \u201cWherever I am in the world, tasting an Archie Rose whisky immediately transports me right back home, to that feeling of sitting around a campfire in the Australian bush with my mates.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hemsworth says he\u2019s impressed with Archie Rose\u2019s use of only Australian-grown malts at its Sydney distilleries, which include the original Rosebery site and bar which opened in the inner south in 2015<\/a>, and the company\u2019s production facility in Banksmeadow. <\/p>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019re a brilliant example of what Australia does best, and I can\u2019t wait to share that with the world.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"ChrisChris Hemsworth has an undisclosed stake in Australia\u2019s most awarded distillery.<\/p>\n

Hemsworth\u2019s investment shows confidence in an Australian spirits market reported to be worth $5.6 billion in 2024, according to International Wines and Spirits Record data. Research firm Mordor Intelligence values the current US spirits market<\/a> at $172 billion and forecasts it to grow by $17 billion over the next five years. More than one-third of the US spirits market is whisky based. <\/p>\n

The Avengers star, who is an Old Fashioned drinker and partial to the brand\u2019s rye malt whisky, won\u2019t be involved in making the spirits, which will remain in the hands of Archie Rose master distiller Dave Withers, a two-time winner of distiller of the year in the Spirits Business Awards. <\/p>\n

\u201cChris is very comfortable leaving the distilling to the distillers,\u201d said Edwards. <\/p>\n

Instead, Hemsworth will focus on the creative processes, including product redesign, content strategy and launch plans for the US market. \u201cHe\u2019s been very involved in that, more than I thought he would have been,\u201d said Edwards. <\/p>\n

\"ArchieArchie Rose co-owners Chris Hemsworth and Will Edwards are taking Archie Rose global. <\/p>\n

Hemsworth has been working behind the scenes with Archie Rose for more than a year, mostly over email and phone, and visiting the Banksmeadow site. \u201cWe did our best to keep it under wraps,\u201d said Edwards. \u201cBut he\u2019s not the most inconspicuous guy. We had to tell our staff that he was there doing some recce work for a [movie] role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterwards, rather than making a quiet exit, Hemsworth joined the team in the lunchroom. \u201cI assumed he was going to head off, and instead he goes down to level one, which is the lunchroom. He makes a coffee and then just chills out there with the whole team,\u201d said Edwards. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Oh my god\u2019 \u2013 we\u2019re trying to keep this low key, and he\u2019s just hanging out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edwards wasn\u2019t looking for a business partner when he met Hemsworth through a mutual friend a few years ago, but says the fit made sense and the timing was right. \u201cIf you had asked me before this happened to pick someone to partner with, Chris Hemsworth would have been No.1 on the list,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\"ArchieArchie Rose\u2019s latest release: Triple Smoked Single Malt Whiskey. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the best possible partner. He\u2019s an Australian icon and he\u2019s a really good bloke. There\u2019s no kind of pretence, he\u2019s willing to get his hands dirty and get involved in stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new appointment marks a major leap for Archie Rose. When Edwards lodged the development application for the original Rosebery site, it became the first independent distillery to open in the City of Sydney in more than 160 years. Joined by several other craft spirit brands, including Four Pillars (fully owned by Lion, a subsidiary of Japanese brewing giant Kirin), it helped launch an Australian distillery revival in the mid-2010s. <\/p>\n

Twelve years on, it\u2019s been awarded more than 400 awards including world\u2019s best rye whisky four times in the World Whiskies Awards and world\u2019s best contemporary gin in the World Gin Awards. Its spirits portfolio includes whisky, vodka and rum, although it\u2019s best known locally for gin. <\/p>\n

\"DistilleryDistillery manager Tim Hosken in the Archie Rose barrel room in Banksmeadow.Steven Siewert<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually started distilling whisky before we started distilling gin. The first whiskies were laid down in December 2014, and then the first gins were made in January 2015. I would say that whisky is actually our lead category now.\u201d <\/p>\n

Archie Rose will launch three new whiskies at the end of the year. <\/p>\n

They\u2019ll have new packaging, an updated logo and more efficient and sustainable design, reflecting the company\u2019s B Corp certification which came through this month. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d probably say the whisky packaging now skews a little bit more masculine, as you would expect with Chris, and it\u2019s also a better representation of Australia,\u201d Edwards says. \u201cSo when you put the product in front of people, particularly non-Australians, it straight away feels how an Australian whisky should feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ArchieArchie Rose\u2019s Banksmeadow facility can produce more than 2.5 million litres of whisky a year.<\/p>\n

The US will be the primary international market, alongside New Zealand and select markets in Asia, with the United Kingdom and Europe to follow in 2027. \u201cThere\u2019ll be an initial focus on whisky, but we\u2019re very open to bringing our white spirits portfolio in future,\u201d Edwards says.<\/p>\n

Exporting any kind of spirit can be tricky, and involves navigating complex trade agreements, import tariffs and distribution deals, but Edwards says one of the biggest hurdles for Australian producers is supply. <\/p>\n

With this in mind, Edwards established Australia\u2019s largest distillery in Banksmeadow in 2020, with the capability to produce more than 2.5 million litres of whisky a year. \u201cWe have over 45,000 casks in the bond store under maturation already, and a really well-planned production schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WillWill Edwards founded Archie Rose in 2014. <\/p>\n

Another obstacle is awareness, and that\u2019s where Hemsworth comes in. With a global fan base, Edwards is hoping that Hemsworth might be exactly what Archie Rose needs to cut through overseas. \u201cHe\u2019s obviously the biggest Australian there is, and in terms of being able to tell the story to consumers, there\u2019s no better guy.\u201d <\/p>\n

There is a risk to that strategy: that Archie Rose is seen as just another celebrity-owned spirit with a famous face on the label, like Ryan Reynolds\u2019 Aviation American Gin or Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson\u2019s Teremana Tequila.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [we can avoid that] because we have existed for a long time prior, and we try to make whisky that\u2019s authentically Australian and really tastes like the place it\u2019s from \u2013 provided we get to tell that story, which is what we\u2019re really trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HomegrownHomegrown star Chris Hemsworth has a global fan base. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Australian provenance of the whisky is central to how Edwards and Hemsworth intend to market Archie Rose overseas and justify its cost, which will sit above many high-volume Scotch blends. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow it differentiates itself is through the raw materials that go into the whisky \u2013 our Australian barley, rye and wheat is second to none \u2013 and then the maturation climate,\u201d says Edwards. <\/p>\n

Australian whisky isn\u2019t governed by the same restrictive legislations as Scotch, for instance, leaving distillers more room to innovate. An example of this is Archie Rose\u2019s Triple Smoked Single Malt Whisky, which uses native stringybark timber to smoke the malts giving the spirit a distinctly Australian smoke character, reminiscent of campfires and wood smoke. <\/p>\n

\"ArchieArchie Rose\u2019s Smoked Cask Series. <\/p>\n

The hope, ultimately, is that this opens the door not just for Archie Rose, but for Australian whiskies, says Edwards. \u201cI hope, but I\u2019m pretty confident, that inevitably what\u2019s going to happen is that the awareness of the category is going to grow and consumers will be curious and they will try all different types of Australian whisky.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bigger we can grow the category, the better for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"ErinaErina Starkey<\/a> \u2013 Erina is the Good Food App Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Previously, Erina held a number of editing roles at delicious.com.au and writing roles at Broadsheet and Concrete Playground.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere\u2019s no better guy\u201d to help the booze brand take its whisky global, says the Sydney distillery\u2019s founder.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-868374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}