A small-batch limited release for June 2026, built around sticky date pudding and the brandy you always wished was open.

Some pairings are inevitable

Sticky date and brandy have been finding each other on every Australian table since the seventies. Pudding goes on the plate, brandy comes off the shelf. One on the way, one already there.

We just stopped pretending they were two separate decisions and put them in the same bottle.

It’s not an invention. It’s a recognition.

A familiar move for us

Turning beloved desserts and treats into limited releases is something of a habit at Granddad Jack’s. Peachy Gin. Pavlova Gin. Apple Pie. Christmas Pudding. Now Stickydate.

The pattern isn’t an accident. Our head distiller has a sweet tooth and a good memory for the desserts you grew up with. The bottles that come out of it are the ones that close the loop on a meal you already know.

What we did

The brandy at the base of this bottle started as wine. Wine that came out of the 2021 Brisbane floods, salvaged from damaged bottles that were going to be written off. We distilled it into brandy and rested it for two years in a Pedro Ximénez sherry barrel.

When we pulled it out, it was already oaky and bold, with a touch of deep red fruit — exactly the canvas you’d want for something warmer, sweeter, more nostalgic.

So we got the dates out.

Pitted dates and house-made pecan brittle, steeped in the brandy for a week. Then removed and cooked down in a pot with brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and water — the kind of syrup that pulls every flavour out of the fruit and reduces it into something dark, velvety and impossibly sweet.

That syrup went back into the brandy. Two more weeks of rest. Then in the bottle.

The result is a brandy that’s confident, comforting, and absolutely the third course of any meal it shows up in.

What it tastes like

On the nose: Vanilla, caramel and sticky date pudding. The pudding-on-a-spoon smell, lifted by oak.

On the palate: Sticky date pudding with a sophisticated oaky finish. The PX sherry barrel does its work underneath the date — keeps the sweetness honest, gives the spirit shoulders.

On the finish: Long, warm, slightly buttery. The kind of close that asks for one more before the next conversation starts.

Three ways to drink it

The Short (neat-ish). 30ml over ice, dehydrated orange slice. The simplest pour, for the easiest moment. If you start here, you’ll know what we were building.

The Long (slow sip). 30ml topped with Long Rays Dark Soda, dehydrated orange slice. This is what Sunday afternoons were invented for.

Sticky Business (the signature). 45ml Stickydate Brandy, 20ml spiced brown sugar syrup (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger), 5ml triple sec. Topped with vanilla bean ice cream foam, finished with freshly grated nutmeg and pecan brittle. The pudding, in a glass, dressed for the evening. At home, swap the triple sec for orange bitters or a splash of OJ, and the foam for a little cream.

Where to find it

Stickydate Brandy is available from 10 June 2026. Online at granddadjacks.com.au, at the Distillery Door (45 Lemana Lane, Miami, Gold Coast), and from 16 June at Granddad Jack’s Bar Experience in Newcastle.

252 bottles. When they’re gone, that’s it. We are not running a second batch. Some bottles only get to happen once.

Full recipes and serves: https://www.granddadjacks.com/blogs/recipes/stickydate-brandy-recipes

Crafted by our team. Built for the third course. Made for the people who already knew it should exist.