Only the Unexpeated sits under Starward's room

The brand midpoint is $85, and the six spread wide. Only one of them sits below the whiskies the model rates as its flavour company; one sits barely over; and the dearest runs at more than three times what its neighbours cost. For a single distillery that is a remarkable range of value, and it means the Starward you reach for matters as much as whether you reach for Starward at all.

The value, and it is a genuine surprise, is the peated one. Unexpeated is $75, about 6% under the roughly $80 its flavour neighbours cost, the only bottle on the Starward shelf priced below its company. It takes the house wine-cask fruit, apricot and berries and jam, and lays a gentle peat over the top of it, which is a more interesting thing than it sounds and nothing like an Islay. Getting it under the price of its neighbourhood, on an Australian shelf where almost nothing comes in under, is the kind of quiet bargain worth crossing the shop for.

Next to it, the everyday workhorse. Two-fold is a double grain of wheat and malt, and at $74 it lands about 10% over the roughly $67 its neighbours fetch, close enough to fair to count. It is the light, easy one: apple and gentle caramel, soft grain and barley, nothing demanding. This is the Starward for mixing and for weeknights, priced where an entry grain whisky should be.

Nova is the flagship, the pure red-wine-cask single malt that made the name, and at $94 it runs about 25% over the roughly $75 its company costs. You pay a little over the odds, but you get the full statement: jammy stone fruit, apricot, sweet dark berries, the richest clean expression of what the Melbourne wine casks do. If you want to understand Starward in one glass, this is still the bottle, premium and all.

Then the specialties, where the numbers climb. Panettone is the Christmas-cask release, finished to taste of the Italian festive cake, and at $105 it is about 57% over the roughly $67 its neighbours cost. It delivers on the theme, rich and dried-fruited with candied orange peel and a baking-spice warmth, a seasonal treat priced like one. There is also the bottled Old Fashioned, which is a ready-to-pour cocktail rather than a whisky to sip neat, so it sits a little oddly in a distillery line-up. At $64 for the 500mL it is about 52% over the roughly $42 its neighbours cost; there is no tasting note to quote and it is really a convenience product, so judge it as that and not as a dram.

Which leaves the Solera at the top, and it is where the arithmetic gets genuinely startling. At $143 it runs about 225% over the roughly $44 its flavour neighbours cost, more than three times their price and comfortably the widest gap in the range. The whisky itself is the deepest wine-cask expression Starward makes: rich apricot jam, dried fruit, a thick sweetness, the solera system layering cask on cask. It is a serious bottle. But the model is placing its nearest flavour kin at well under a third of its price, which says the character it offers can be found far cheaper elsewhere, and that the Solera's ticket is paying for the method and the name more than for something the glass alone can justify.

Across the six the shape is clear: the core range, the Unexpeated, the Two-fold and the Nova, is priced from slightly under to modestly over its company, which is about as honest as Australian whisky gets. The premiums all sit in the specialties, the Panettone, the cocktail and above all the Solera, where you are paying for the concept as much as the contents.

So, buying. The quiet star is the Unexpeated at $75: a peated Starward under the price of its neighbourhood, which almost nothing Australian manages, and a more original dram than its modest ticket suggests. For an everyday pour or a mixer, the Two-fold at $74 is honest money. For the full Melbourne-wine-cask experience in one glass, the Nova at $94 is worth its small premium. The Panettone at $105 is a Christmas indulgence, fairly priced for what it is if you want the theme. And the Solera at $143 is for the committed Starward drinker who loves the deepest wine-cask style and has decided the method is worth more than triple its flavour company, because that is exactly what the shelf is asking.