BURDEKIN BROTHERS WIN GOLD IN LONDON

Brothers Ross, Chris and Josh Pirrone on their Pirrone Brothers farm just outside Ayr. Photos supplied.

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A first-of-its-kind, Burdekin-grown zucchini flower vodka has beaten a horde of international competition to win gold at last month's World Drinks Awards in London.

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The drink, which uses zucchini flowers grown by Pirrone Brothers just outside Ayr, took out the ‘World’s Best Botanical Vodka’ title at the prestigious event.

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Pirrone Brothers co-owner Josh Pirrone said the victory justified his last-minute decision to fly across the world, collecting the accolade on behalf of the family business and Yeppoon-based Reef Distillers.

“I told [the organiser] I’m only gonna come if we win. He said, ‘I can't tell you, but it'll be worth your while’, so I just booked it on that,” Mr Pirrone said.

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The idea for the award-winning spirit was first conceived in early 2025, with the recipe, production and branding process taking almost a year before being finalised in December.

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To qualify for the award, the zucchini flower vodka first had to rank highest nationally—which it did, after a round of blind sampling.

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The five highest-scoring countries were then deemed finalists, before Pirrone Brothers were announced winners at the 2 June event.

The ceremony brought together producers, distillers, and drinks professionals from around the world to the Waldorf Hotel, celebrating innovation and excellence in the industry.

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Mr Pirrone relished the opportunity to network with international distillers, albeit with some language difficulties. He said the victory was made sweeter by the sheer level of competition their unique concoction beat out.

“Making small talk with the guests at the pre-drinks was pretty hard, because there were French people, Italian dudes…,” he said.

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“Some of these guys had been doing it for 10, 20, 30 years. It’s their livelihood. So to win the award against them was pretty cool.”

Mr Pirrone said he initially approached multiple distillers with the idea of producing a vodka using his farm produce, before eventually partnering with Reef Distillers.

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“I just wanted to do a vodka and I spoke to a few people, but there wasn’t much interest,” he said.

“When I got in touch with Reef Distillers, Laura suggested using the zucchini flowers, and it kind of clicked from there.

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“It wasn’t intentional. It was more of a collaboration of ideas and we just ran with it.”

The resulting spirit is a fusion of locally grown zucchini flowers with traditional vodka production methods, inspired by the small zucchini flowers commonly served in restaurants.

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Its success has encouraged the family to explore other value-added products, with Mr Pirrone revealing an eggplant pickle could be the next product to hit the market.

“We’ve got an eggplant pickle recipe that we’re fine-tuning at the moment,” he said.

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“Hopefully in the next two or three months we’ll start selling that and put it out there.”