Food & Drink Business Rising Star, Birds of Isle Distillery, has launched a Birchal crowdfunding campaign to raise $450,000. The funds will go towards expanding distribution.
Founded by partners in business and life, Chanel Melani and Sally Carter, Birds of Isle is a female-owned and operated Australian rum brand with the goal to create a rum that is gender neutral, steering away from the dark spirits for men, clear spirits for women trope.
Carter has always been a rum drinker having grown up in the rum heartland of country New South Wales and the pair saw the spirit has an untapped opportunity.
With Australia producing more than 30 million tonnes of sugarcane every year, the iconic Bundaberg Rum taking up most of the landscape, and consumers’ knowledge of the spirit being limited, Melani and Carter set themselves a mission to challenge outdated perceptions of rum, change the narrative surrounding it, make it appealing to a broader audience, and most importantly, find a way to incorporate Australian terroir into Birds of Isle.
“Rum could be our national spirit. The northeastern coastline of Australia is full of sugarcane, so we’ve decided to embrace it in a complex and thoughtful way that we think could change people’s minds about rum,” Melani says.
Based in Murwillumbah in the Northern Rivers region – Bundjalung Country – of New South Wales, using local Indigenous ingredients to capture the local terroir in their rum was table stakes for Carter and Melani.
Carter says, “We did around 70 trials with different ingredients in the area, and the bunya nut was the most interesting.”
The pair worked closely with Mindy Woods, a local Bundjalung woman, chef and Indigenous cultural advisor, to learn first-hand about the bunya nut from the Indigenous community, ensuring a respectful representation of this native ingredient.
It inspired the creation of a new process to incorporate smoke into the spirit, giving it a depth of flavour more commonly associated with whisky.
Melani said the Birchal raise will not only enable the distillery to expand its footprint in capital cities and build and scale its direct-to-consumer sales, it offers investors a unique opportunity to support a “pioneering, female-led spirits brand at a critical stage of growth”.
“Birds of Isle was founded to celebrate the bounty of Australia’s landscapes and reimagine what rum could be.
“This crowdfunding campaign is more than just an investment opportunity – it’s a chance for our community to help shape the future of Australian spirits. We’re proud to drive change in a male-dominated industry and hope to inspire others to dream big and push boundaries,” Melani said.
Birds of Isle has already secured listings in top-tier venues in its hometown of the Northern Rivers at Pipit and Elements of Byron, and its first key listings in Sydney at Nomad and Bennelong.
Its goal is to expand its presence in premium bars, restaurants and liquor stores across Queensland and New South Wales in the coming year.
A portion of the investment will be dedicated to strengthening Birds of Isle's direct-to-consumer reach, redefining how people experience cocktails beyond the bar. Through expert-led, interactive content and bartender-crafted recipes, Birds of Isle aims to empower consumers to master professional-quality cocktails at home.
“By engaging directly with consumers and inviting feedback, Birds of Isle is building a community where cocktail culture becomes an accessible, everyday luxury,” Melani said.
Expressions of interest for the crowdfunding campaign open today (18 March) with the official funding round launching on 8 April.
