That’s the spirit: catharsis in a bottle for former Senate president Stephen Parry

It was the Constitutional fuse that detonated his political career, but former Senate president Stephen Parry is having the last laugh on section 44.

Former senator Stephen Parry and head distiller Raj Charan Singh with a bottle of their Section 44 gin at their distillery in Hob. Picture: Peter Mathew

It was the constitutional fuse that detonated his political career, but former Senate president Stephen Parry is having the last laugh on section 44.

Ejected from the Senate in ­November 2017, after 13 years, due to the clash between section 44 and his father’s British birth, Mr Parry has harnessed that difficult experience to kick start his new career — as a distiller.

Section 44 handcrafted Tasmanian gin is the first tipple to flow from Mr Parry’s new Hobart-based Pattex Distillery. And former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was among the first to buy the lemon-myrtle-infused spirit that is already receiving rave reviews in the gin scene.

“It is a cathartic experience,” explains the 59-year-old former senior Liberal, one of three investors in the new distillery that is part of an ongoing boom in Tasmania’s spirits industry.

“We did a lot of brainstorming over a name, sometimes over a bottle of red. But everything kept coming back to the fact that it probably never would have happened if I hadn’t come into the business (due to section 44).”

The Burnie-born descendant of First Fleet convicts remains “puzzled” by the constitutional clause, which prohibits people from office if they are, through ­either parent, entitled to be a citizen of another country.

However, he says he took comfort in the aftermath of the upheaval from the support provided by a broad cross-section of colleagues, from Mr Turnbull to Cory Bernardi, as well as Labor and crossbench MPs.

He resolved early in the piece not to become embittered. “I thought: I could play the victim, or go and get another job,” he said.

“So I went out and got another job and just decided to put the past behind me.”

An old acquaintance, Andrew Patten, asked him to give a “once over” to his Hobart excavation business. “I identified a few savings for him and then he asked if I would join him in the business,” Mr Parry said.

“I said ‘On one condition: I don’t get stuck behind a desk; I get out and work on the tools’.

“I did my heavy rigid truck licence and got taught by some really good excavation drivers. So I do truck driving, excavation work — and also manage the books.”

A meeting between Mr Patten and then-Uber driver Raj Charan Singh resulted in a decision to join forces on yet another business opportunity, with distilling identified as the best option. “Raj and I then did a three-month distiller’s course,” Mr Parry said.

The trio invested about $1m in the distillery, at Cambridge just east of Hobart, importing copper stills from Portugal.

With Mr Singh as head distiller, Section 44 gin was offered to the market for the first time last week, while its whisky-in-waiting is maturing in barrels and will ready in about two years.

Career changes are nothing new for Mr Parry, who has been a Detective and an undertaker and holds a part-time position on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

He’s happy. “Driving trucks and making whisky — it’s every bloke’s dream,” he said.

Politics remains a passion and a return is not ruled out. But not before that first whisky matures.