Woongarrah’s David Tolmie lodges plans for micro-distillery

The Central Coast’s craft beer and spirits scene is starting to take off with an application lodged for a new micro-distillery at Woongarrah. Read the details here.

A husband and wife team are looking to turn their 20-year fascination with home brewing and distilling into a viable side hustle they hope to one day grow into a commercial operation.

David Tolmie and his wife have lodged a development application (DA) with Central Coast Council to turn the garage and spare room of their Woongarrah home into the region’s newest micro-distillery.

Mr Tolmie said the couple had travelled extensively over the years visiting microbreweries and distilleries and wanted to produce a “niche product”, which was hand crafted from scratch.

From “grain to glass” Mr Tolmie wants to make vodka, gin and whiskey from scratch. (File photo)

The couple intend to run a 200L capacity still, which is around the size of a hot water system, and make 100 bottles (70-litres) of gin and vodka a month.

They also want to make 100L of whisky per quarter, which will be aged in 100L barrels for a minimum of two years and potentially expand into an equivalent amount of rum.

“Ultimately the aim is to build up a successful business which will eventually be large enough to lease commercial premises in approximately two years’ time,” the couple’s DA states.

“The spirits will be bottled with a small capacity manual machine which will generate little to no noise.”

If successful Central Coast Distillery will become the region’s second commercial operation behind Distillery Botanica at Erina.

Mr Tolmie said the goal was to sell the spirits online or at markets and fairs until they got big enough to quit their day jobs and take on the business full time.

Ultimately Mr Tolmie said they hoped to replicate the success of other distilleries, such as Many Spirits Co, and have a distillery, microbrewery and a food outlet from the same location.

However, while it remains a home business, there will be no sales or tastings at the premises.

Mr Tolmie wants to emulate Manly Spirits Co.

Meanwhile WA’s Beerfarm has lodge plans to build a brewery on the coast.

Mr Tolmie also aims to reduce waste as much as possible, so spent grain will either be given to friends and family to feed to their chickens and goats, or to a local baker who is making bread with spent grains.

He said spent botanicals from the gin-making process, which would be about a kilogram a week, would either be composted or made into other foodstuffs such as jams and preserves for personal use with an eye to expanding the product range in the future.

The plans for a micro-distillery come after Western Australian company Beerfarm lodged plans for a brewery, bar, market garden and 450-seat restaurant on a 10ha site at Halloran, near Warnervale earlier this year.