Bundaberg Rum distillery gives visitors the chance to DIY
Get a rare rum deal at an esteemed Queensland landmark.
Several things strike me on my visit to Bundaberg Rum Distillery; we’ll get to the aroma in a minute. My first question, however, is, where is everybody? This stuff is behind the bar of almost every pub and restaurant in the country, but on a vast site beside the Burnett River in this central Queensland city, there doesn’t seem to be anyone making it. (Which is sort of where I come in, and we’ll get to that soon, too.)
Somewhere among the sheds, vats and barrels are just 34 full-time employees. It seems someone almost has to die for a job to become available, such is the place’s esteem. Every ingredient used is local, from town water to the unique strand of saccharomyces cerevisiae, or bakers’ yeast, held in a fridge that’s the Fort Knox of Bundaberg. “It’s like working at a really big craft distillery,” says our guide Duncan Littler. “Craft isn’t size; it’s transparency of process.”
One process is handling a lot of molasses, of which it takes a litre to make a 700ml bottle of rum. But because the sugar refinery next door, from where the molasses is piped, only crushes for part of the year, the distillery stores it in open vats. With today’s temperature at 33C, it’s like walking through a liquorice factory.
Littler is leading us to a corner of a huge shed where, surrounded by vats and barrels, we’re sitting down to the world’s first blend-your-own Bundaberg Rum experience. Only the chosen 34 have had their hands on the product to this point, and everyone from cooper to cashier is a trained tester.
A random dozen taste the product each day, and if they identify a really interesting batch, it goes to a special vat. Other rum is set aside for us to have a go at, and on our bench sit five samples. They come from barrels formerly used to age port, sherry, bourbon and whisky, plus one labelled “heavy charred American oak”.
First we sniff and taste, using water and crackers between samplings to neutralise the palate and chewing coffee beans to clear the nasal passages. Then, using an oversized eye-dropper, we extract amounts of those we think will blend to our personal taste. Littler encourages us to try different combinations, rewarding our favourite with the majority of the blend. I settle on charred oak – “a restrained nose, almost nutty”, say my notes – augmented by the more spiritous port barrel and a touch of the sherry for sweetness. Then, at a bank of five barrels, we draw off the requisite amounts for our blend, which Littler takes away to be corked, capped and labelled. We each now have two bottles of unique Bundy, with details held for when we want refills.
The distillery’s museum tells how this drink has lubricated Australia since colonial days. The plant opened in 1888, when falling sugar prices spawned the need to add value to the crop. Pre-1960, Bundy was largely a Queensland drink, but astute marketing man Sam McMahon, brother of future prime minster Billy, had a couple of ideas to attract more attention. First, it was the square bottle, and then the polar bear symbol, to appeal to the NSW and Victorian markets “because it’s a bit chillier down there”.
The distillery has burned down twice, the second time in 1936 when lightning sparked an explosion and some of the vats emptied into the river, giving rise to the story of the drunken barramundi. Except it wasn’t the finished product that escaped, just the molasses. A sticky end nonetheless.
In the know
The Blend Your Own Rum Experience, for adults only, runs on Fridays and Saturdays, 12.30pm, and costs $237.50, which includes two bottles of your blend and a distillery tour.
Jeremy Bourke was a guest of Bundaberg Rum Distillery and Tourism and Events Queensland.
PICTURES: TEQ
