Spirit houses revive alchemic art
Think of a spirit — any spirit, anywhere in the world — and there is a fair chance someone is having a red hot crack at cooking one up in t.
Sheep’s whey, wormwood, Seville orange, beetroot, rye, meadowsweet, lemon myrtle, saltbush and Christmas pudding. It sounds like a witch’s brew that would render its victims unconscious with a single sip. And in the worst cases it certainly can, as this is just a handful of the ingredients now fuelling the explosion in a unique, and very Australian, subculture of craft distilleries now emerging around the country.
Today it’s possible to find an endless array of local spirits in every colour and of every variety – drinks made for reflection rather than downing in shots or mixing with coke. Fancy a gin for Christmas? Don’t miss Four Pillars festive gin, created with homemade Christmas pudding in a distillery surrounded by a sea of vines in the Yarra Valley. Feel like a strawberry Martini? Track down Poor Tom’s Sydney Dry Gin with its strawberry infusion, crafted in a nondescript industrial warehouse located in a drab lane less than 8km from the CBD. There’s a whisky that resembles the single malt from Scotland’s famed Islay outpost, or Hellyers Road Slightly Peated 10 Year Old Single Malt, made on the edge of Burnie on Tasmania’s north-easterly coast and no doubt assisted by the crystalline purity of the local rainwater.
If you can think of a spirit, any spirit, anywhere in the world, there is a fair chance someone, somewhere is having a red hot crack at cooking one up in this country.
While our local practitioners are bringing their own inimitable style to the art, distilling has been with us for thousands of years. Ancient alchemists heated low-grade alcohol to craft what were first used as medicines and holy waters. But as the process was refined over time, the more pleasant qualities of these spirits very slowly revealed themselves.
Unlike winemaking, where yeast will do its job under most circumstances, distilling is an art. Yet in the early days it was often just the leftovers from a bountiful grain harvest that were distilled to provide the makers with a little warmth through the cold winter nights.
The creation of spirits evolved very much as a craft industry. At one time half the whisky in Scotland was made by small stills – harsh moonshine that could easily poison the unsuspecting drinker. Hundreds of such small stills were spread throughout the Highlands so the locals could have their dram without paying the taxman. Australia also had its fair share of amateur distillers, but over time smaller stills around the globe were closed down by lawmen, older stills became inefficient, and one by one they were all replaced by the bigger brands and their facilities. It seemed the art of craft distilling had largely been lost forever.
But not quite. Australia has harboured a hardy gang of pioneers of the art for the past 25 years, chipping away during a time when shiraz and chardonnay emerged as the national drinks and spirits were mainly the domain of the international big end of town, with a marketing budget to match. And it was in Tasmania that many of these pioneers were practising their craft.
It’s not the first time Tasmania has emerged as a distillers’ paradise. In the early colonial days, no doubt driven by a very thirsty local population with a strong taste for hard liquor, Tasmania had a burgeoning whisky industry, with 16 legal distilleries and plenty more at the “craft” end of the spectrum. Whether based on Tasmania’s superb potential for spirit production – its natural ingredients, air and water quality are second to none – or simply a local thirst, the distillers had found a happy home.
Perhaps it was too successful, however, and taking a toll on local life, as in 1838 the wife of the governor of Tasmania made a move against the industry, telling her husband “I would prefer barley be fed to pigs than it be used to turn men into swine”. Soon after, distilling spirits was banned in Tasmania, a state of affairs that continued for the next 150 years. Overnight this thriving industry was shut down.
But Tasmania’s suitability for the production of fine spirits remained, awaiting a change in political will and a pioneer to push for the industry’s revival.
That man is Bill Lark, considered by many to be the godfather of spirits in Australia. Lark, a whisky enthusiast, was fly-fishing in his home state and sharing a dram of single malt Scotch to celebrate a catch. And with that nip came the first spark, and a realisation that Tasmania bore a stunning similarity to the north of Scotland, home to the finest single malts. It had high-quality natural ingredients, including barley (still to this day exported to Scotland for whisky production); exceptionally pure water and no lack of it; cold temperatures for slow spirit maturation; and even a supply of peat, which gives some whiskies their strong smoky, iodine characters.
But before founding his distillery, Lark had to overturn more than 150 years of law. That proved easier than expected – officials brimming with local pride and jumping at the chance for Tasmania to put itself on the world stage quickly legalised distillation in Tasmania. National laws that had previously limited spirit distillation to large companies were also changed, opening the door to craft spirits around the country. It was a seminal moment in the birth of a local industry. In 1992 the Lark Distillery was founded and it remains a leading source of Australian whisky.
Today, that revolution in craft spirits has spread well beyond its Tasmanian origins, with dozens of distilleries having won awards at major international shows. From West Winds gin in Margaret River to Archie Rose close to Sydney’s CBD, there are exceptional craft distilleries pushing global spirit boundaries with a combination of passion and technical skill.
Distillery Bottanica, founded by Philip Moore and located in a 1.2ha garden near Erina on the NSW Central Coast, is one such project. Moore, a horticulturist, founded Australia’s largest herb nursery and managed it for more than 20 years, making him uniquely qualified to understand the vital importance of botanicals in the creation of quality spirits.
In common with the unique character of the local craft spirits scene, many of whose distillers do not limit themselves to a single style, Distillery Botanica creates gin, vodka and various liqueurs. Where possible all botanicals are drawn from the surrounding gardens, which allows Moore to manage quality at every step of the production process – true paddock-to-plate spirit making, as it was for the early Scottish Highlanders who relied on local resources and craft production.
You get the distinct impression there is a bit of the mad scientist about Moore. “I love nothing better than deconstructing the flavours of herbs, foods and drinks, then fusing them together to create a flavour symphony,” he says. By handcrafting spirits and running hundreds of flavour trials, he has been able to build an enviable reputation and glean numerous awards at international competitions. His Roots and Leaves gin is made from a broad and curious blend of botanicals, from galangal and turmeric to kaffir lime and curry leaves. It is a very subtle style, lacking the typical dominant juniper pungency and finishing with elements of curry and spice.
Winemakers are also getting in on the craft spirits phenomenon, creating vermouth lookalikes by distilling wine with various botanicals. Whether for a bit of fun, as with wineries such as Henschke, or taking a more serious form, as in Giant Steps’ Causes & Cures, these are a great leap forward from the mass-produced products normally found in a dry martini. Causes and Cures is very expressive for a vermouth, with layers of Seville orange, dried herbs and peppery elements well integrated with floral and tropical flavours from its wine base.
The paddock-to-plate phenomenon is a vital feature of many of the new-wave craft distillers, and often in unusual ways. Tasmania’s Hartshorn distillery was born out of the Grandvewe cheesery, overlooking the D’Entrecasteaux Channel & Bruny Island, and a crazy idea of turning sheep’s whey into vodka and gin. Every year at the cheesery, thousands of litres of leftover whey from the cheesemaking process was being needlessly discarded. Ryan Hartshorn tasked himself with uncovering a method to process it so that it could be fermented and distilled, a process that took more than two years to perfect.
Today he creates a range of sheep whey gins and vodkas, plus a vanilla whey liqueur, all packaged in bottles he hand-paints.
Hartshorn is also one of the smallest distilleries in Australia, and it takes craft to a new level with microscopically small batch sizes – from 150 bottles down to as few as 17. The Hartshorn range is very distinctive for the sweetness of its aromas and its texture, with the Sheep Whey Vodka a standout – a very flavourful yet delicate and nuanced spirit with a silky smooth, creamy textured palate. It’s unique and utterly delicious.
Peter Bignell’s Belgrove distillery is another operation dedicated not only to making spirits that reflect a very specific place, but also to environmental sustainability. The idea was born out of a large rye vintage from Bignell’s farm in central Tasmania and the opportunity he saw to use all the available local materials to craft a fine rye whisky from the grain grown on his own property.
His are truly handmade whiskies. Bignell started his distillery by building his own copper still, which is now heated by leftover cooking oil from a nearby roadhouse. All the machinery on his farm uses the same biodiesel – the only significant material brought onto the site for whisky production. The water is drawn from local rainwater, with wastewater used for irrigating the rye crop and the rye left over after distillation fed to the sheep. Bignell would also be one of the only distillers in the world to take on the back-breaking work of digging his own peat for smoking the rye, from a family farm close to Bass Straight.
Belgrove Rye whiskies come in a range of styles: a white rye bottled quite soon after distillation; an aged style that spends two or more years in oak; and various versions in a range of different barrels, including shiraz. The white rye is typically spicy but silky, despite its youth. The barrel-aged whiskies show lots of character – gingerbread and tea, with a distinct peaty smokiness and spicy oak. The shiraz-matured version is more subtle, with greater oak intensity and more overall elegance.
In the eighties and nineties, Australian wineries ascended to the world stage and are now widely recognised as some the world’s best, driven by a unique group of talented and passionate winemakers who paved the way. Today, the sheer quality and variety of unique craft spirits being made here suggest that the fame of Australian drinks will quickly evolve past the grape and that very soon our craft spirits too will achieve the same hallowed status.
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