What do you get when four mates, all industry heavyweights in their own right, get together to make booze? Very delicious treats, that’s what you get.

Article Alice Armitage Photographs by Luke Burgess

Shaun Byrne

Shaun Byrne, also the creator of Maidenii Vermouth, first identified a niche in the market for locally produced cocktail staples. Over the course of his hospitality career, Shaun has spent hundreds of hours sourcing Australian produce. Marionette represented an opportunity to partner with independent farmers to source the best local produce. Shaun is also part of the team behind Holy Water, a festival designed to showcase the best distiller from across Australia.

Nick Tesar

Nick Tesar, a world-class competition bartender with an impressive resume of it-list restaurants to his name, brings his knowledge to the table. These days you can find Nick manning Fitzroy’s Bar Liberty, but it was during his previous role at Bar Lûmé in the acclaimed Lûmé restaurant where his enthusiasm for liqueurs took flight. “We focused on getting the most out of incredible Australian produce, thinking laterally to extract flavour using the best equipment available.”

Lauren Bonkowski

Lauren Bonkowski, a designer who specialises in branding for the alcohol industry with success stories such as Pirate Life Brewing under her belt, joined the team without hesitation. “I hear a LOT of business proposals where alcohol is concerned,” Lauren says. “It’s a tough market dominated by big players. But consumers are seeking lower-alcohol drinks and love getting behind local brands. The timing is just right for Marionette.”

Hugh Leech

The final piece of the puzzle is Hugh Leech, who manages production and logistics. He brings a whopping can-do attitude, charm, and booming laugh to the table. Hugh developed his love of making ingredients from scratch at Gin Palace, and is not scared of the hard work and hours on the road that bring Marionette Liqueurs to fruition. Hugh now balances his work life between Marionette and work at the MCG.

In 2017 Nick Tesar, Lauren Bonkowski, Shaun Bryne and Hugh Leech started to spend their spare time making liqueurs, and this entrepreneurial team have continued to slowly redefine the way we all think about booze and where it comes from ever since. With a keen focus on creating classic liqueurs from locally sourced, Australian fruits, they are injecting home grown flavour into some old favourites. With the rising popularity of craft spirits here in Australia, and as the industry begins to shift away from the familiar imported staples, the team saw a real gap in the liqueurs game taking the opportunity to create some absolute ripper beverages. “People are waking up and want to feel more connected to the tasty things they consume. They want to know where it comes from, how it’s made and to learn the origins of what they pour from a bottle. Which has opened the door for more conversations to be had around products like ours.” says Nick.

Producing products the team can really get behind all comes back to a philosophy built around ingredients and most importantly, the fruits that go into every batch. With everything sourced directly from Aussie farmers, like blackberries from Tasmania’s Derwent Valley and oranges from Mildura, Marionette continues to build strong relationships with all of their farmers, always working with seasonality in mind for the tastiest and most sustainable outcomes. With endless industry accolades, their work is certainly being noticed, but getting to where they are today has been anything but an overnight success, and everyone seems fine with that. Knowing that getting it right is more important than getting it done fast. Balancing blends, trialling distillation methods and managing flavour layering is all part of the trial and error process. But they’re certainly getting the hang of it, growing their range of liqueurs from two to ten in just a few years. It’s an incredible feat when you consider that a single liqueur, their signature Caraco, is the perfect blend of five types of oranges. That doesn’t come together without some serious know-how.

It’s not hard to trace all of the team’s decision making back to sustainability, with an emphasis on closed loop processes, minimising power and water waste to complement their sourcing ethos. Nick, Shaun, Lauren and Hugh are also working hard to build sustainability for themselves and the way they work as well. With everyone working on other projects outside of Marionette, getting the work life balance situation sorted seems like a pipe dream. But with burnout so prevalent in the hospitality industry, they know they need to take care of themselves to be able to take care of business.

After the slumber that has been the hospitality industry in Melbourne over recent years, which is where the team are based, Marionette are now settling into their next phase of growth. Which will see them step into the development of their own, much larger product facility. “It’s such an unsexy aspect of growing a business but it’s also such an important one. Building out the fundamentals that will support a long term, sustainable business is not the super exciting, turbulent and triumphant early days but it’s still a huge aspect of the business. It’s invaluable to be able to manage more of our own supply chain and this new infrastructure will give us that.” shares Nick.

It’s pretty clear that these guys are ones to watch and taste - you should definitely do some tasting.

If you’re interested in seeing more of Marionettes work you can head to their page, Marionette.

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