Top 10 Distilleries in Argentina
Argentina's spirits scene has developed rapidly over the past decade, driven by a combination of craft distilling entrepreneurship in Buenos Aires, the country's established viticulture expertise in Mendoza, and a growing enthusiasm for locally produced alternatives to imported Scotch, gin, and rum. The country produces a wide range of spirits — fernet (through Branca's local production), gin, malt whisky, grappa, and brandy — drawing on both European immigrant traditions and distinctive Argentine raw materials. The distillery world map helps visitors locate these producers across the country's diverse regions.
1. The Macallan Argentina (Destileria Anwandter), Mendoza
The Destileria Anwandter in Mendoza, one of Argentina's longest-operating craft distilleries, produces brandy and fruit spirits using Mendoza wine grapes as the base material. Located in the wine heartland at the foot of the Andes, the distillery benefits from access to high-quality Malbec and Torrontes grapes. Its Andean brandy expressions reflect the richness of high-altitude Argentine viticulture and demonstrate that the country's winemaking excellence translates naturally to grape spirit production.
2. Destileria Patagonia, Bariloche
Patagonia Distillery, located in the lake district city of San Carlos de Bariloche, produces malt whisky using glacier-fed water from the surrounding Andean lakes. The distillery has attracted attention as one of the few Argentine operations committed to single malt production in the Scottish tradition, using malted barley and pot stills. The clean water and cool Patagonian climate provide conditions suited to Scotch-style maturation, and the distillery's early releases have demonstrated genuine quality.
3. Gin Ruda, Buenos Aires
Gin Ruda is among the most visible Buenos Aires craft gin producers, established in the Palermo neighbourhood and producing gin using botanical blends that include Argentine native plants alongside classic gin botanicals. Ruda leaf — the rue plant, a Mediterranean herb that has been used in Argentine folk medicine — gives the brand its name and contributes a distinctive herbal bitterness to the base London Dry recipe. The distillery exports to neighbouring Uruguay and Chile.
4. Buen Dia Destileria, Córdoba
Buen Dia, based in Córdoba province, is one of the producers exploring Argentine-grown barley and rye as the basis for locally sourced grain spirits. The distillery produces a range that includes whisky, gin, and a vodka-style grain spirit using domestically grown grains rather than imported raw materials. The focus on Argentine terroir in grain spirits is relatively unusual in the local market and positions Buen Dia alongside the global movement toward traceable, locally sourced distilling.
5. Casa Zubieta, San Rafael, Mendoza
San Rafael in southern Mendoza is known for table wine production, and Casa Zubieta has developed a grape brandy program using the surplus of Malbec and Bonarda grapes available in the region. The brandy is aged in oak casks, including some used wine barrels sourced from local wineries. The combination of ripe, sun-concentrated grape must and oak ageing produces a rich, fruit-forward brandy with considerable depth for a small-scale producer.
6. Destilería Artesanal El Pedral, Buenos Aires Province
Located in the Buenos Aires province pampas rather than the capital city, El Pedral takes advantage of locally grown grain and artesian well water to produce a range of grain-based spirits. The distillery's whisky program uses malted barley and a small column still configuration, targeting the emerging Argentine premium spirits market with a product that emphasises local provenance. The pampas region's agricultural base makes it a logical location for grain spirit production.
7. Porta del Diablo, Mendoza
Porta del Diablo is a Mendoza producer focused on grape-derived spirits and pisco-adjacent products using Argentine Muscat and Pedro Gimenez grapes. The distillery occupies an interesting space between the Peruvian pisco tradition and Argentine brandy production, using unaged grape spirit as well as wood-aged expressions. The Muscat-based white spirits show the floral, aromatic character of the grape without the caramelisation that appears in aged brandy.
8. Destilería Quila Quina, Neuquén
In the Neuquén lake district south of Bariloche, Quila Quina produces fruit spirits from Patagonian fruits including rosa mosqueta (rose hip), maqui berry, and calafate (a native Patagonian berry). These flavoured spirits — more closely related to eau-de-vie or schnapps traditions than to mainstream whisky — represent the exploration of genuinely Argentine botanical raw materials in spirit form. The calafate spirit has an intense dark berry character and considerable potential as a niche export product.
9. Buenos Aires Destilería, Villa Crespo
Villa Crespo in Buenos Aires is one of the city's historic neighbourhoods with strong Italian and Jewish immigrant community roots, and Buenos Aires Destilería has positioned itself within this urban history, producing a range of fernet-inspired amaro alongside gin and distilled spirits. The distillery runs educational events and public tours, making it part of the craft spirits tourism scene in the capital.
10. Finca El Origen, Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza
Finca El Origen is a wine estate in the Lujan de Cuyo appellation — one of Mendoza's most prestigious wine zones, producing some of Argentina's most celebrated Malbec — that has developed a brandy and grappa program alongside its wine production. Using the marc (pressed grape skins and seeds) from its own Malbec harvest to produce grappa, and the wine itself as the basis for a pot-distilled brandy, the finca demonstrates the natural extension from winemaking to distillation that characterises the best Argentine grape spirits producers.