Lark Distillery, Pontville and The Tasman, Hobart
Whisky, history, a luxury hotel… it’s the perfect blend.
As fishing tales go it’s a good one, though few know how it’s been stretched and inflated and all these years on, who cares how big that trout actually was. It’s a story Bill Lark often tells because everyone who meets him wants to know where it all started – what inspired the modern Australian whisky boom.
The former land surveyor launches into the tale with a bush poet’s flair for storytelling as he recalls sharing a single malt scotch with his father-in-law around a fire after hauling in a big one at Lake Sorell in Tasmania’s central highlands. The rustling wind played a duet with the tinkle of the Clyde River. Wood-smoke perfumed the sweet air, a huge trout filled the barbecue, barley fields may have danced in the distance. And as Lark looked at the amber liquid in his hand he got to thinking. Water, barley, climate, peat… Tasmania has it all, so why was no one in the state making whisky?
There was the slight matter of know-how and a 1901 law prohibiting small distillers but Lark and his wife Lyn got to work changing the rule, and learning the art, science and magic of distilling. “I wanted to see if Tasmania could make a really good single malt whisky,” Lark says of his initially simple idea. In truth, he found the key, unlocked the door, flicked on a light and stood back while hundreds rushed into this hitherto little known world, garnering global recognition along the way. Thirty years on, the whisky scene in Tasmania has evolved into a $330 million… I’m tempted to say cult, such is the devotion I witness on this whirlwind trip to the southern capital.
Lark bowed out of his eponymous business in 2013 but remains brand ambassador and a linchpin in the tight-knit industry. Many of the 80-odd distilleries in Tasmania are small operations but others have moved well beyond a makeshift tasting table in a shed. Callington Mill in the frozen-in-time town of Oatlands between Launceston and Hobart has a new $14m distillery with an upmarket restaurant. The highly decorated Sullivans Cove is planning a new “world-class” distillery in Hobart. Lark Distillery has married whisky to history in its new home at Pontville (previously Shene Distillery), a property notable for its magnificent 1850s sandstone Gothic Revival-style stables and coach house where rare ritual burn marks hide in the timberwork, near a hexafoil (concentric circles) scratched into the sandstone – all the work of convicts to ward off evil.
Here, visitors can take a guided tour to understand the process of milling, fermenting, distilling and ageing, and then head into the old shearing shed and granary remade as a tasting room. I’m led past a big log fire to another seated area where four unlabelled bottles of whisky, a pipette and four empty glasses are set out for a blend-your-own experience. A whisky novice, I’m soon sniffing, sipping… floundering to describe what my palate is telling me beyond fig, prune, smoke, leather and faintly medicinal. Cautiously – these cask-strength samples are about 62 per cent alcohol – I mix and match until I have a blend to my liking. As I fix my own signed label to my take-home bottle I can’t help wondering what head distiller and blender Chris Thomson would make of it.
It’s a half-hour drive (or in my case ride) back to Hobart where I skirt an inviting chesterfield in the bunker-like Mary Mary cocktail bar at The Tasman hotel and head up to my room where a warming fire awaits. The Tasman, straddling the CBD and the waterfront, is the first Marriott Luxury Collection hotel in Australia and, unusually, it consists of three distinct adjoining wings spanning three eras – modern, art deco and Georgian – all painstakingly renovated. You could stay here for a month, change rooms every night and still not see all the different room types – some with baths, others with fires, some with both. There are balcony rooms, palatial suites, a presidential pad with a ship-like terrace with its own firepit overlooking the Derwent for about $2800 a night. No matter where you end up, all are incredibly well appointed and tastefully decorated with a treasure trove of surprises. Been admiring the handcrafted woodwork down in the galleries? Look up to the sassafras ceiling inlay in the art deco rooms, or see the blackwood timber bathtub in the St David’s Park suite. It all amounts to luxury with an X-factor, a five-star experience that holds its own with any great city of the world.
And then as I fossick in the mini bar I find a small bottle of Lark whisky made specially for the hotel. Yes, I’m tempted, just to compare. Hey, head distiller Chris, you have my number if you need it!
• Perfect for: Architectural adventurers, whisky aficionados.
• Must do: Blend your own at Lark’s Fuse whisky experience ($499 per person) or take a tour of the Pontville distillery (30 mins north of Hobart, $99pp, larkdistillery.com). Grab a car, a designated driver and a distillery map that will take you to big and small operators tucked in almost every corner of the state.
• Dining: Forget everything you think you know about hotel restaurants:Peppina, at the Tasman hotel, is a festival of Tasmanian produce and a hit with locals. The more casual Deco lounge has an all-day menu and a heavily booked high tea.
• Getting there: The Tasman is at 12 Murray St, Hobart.
• Bottom line: Deluxe king rooms from $348 per night.
theluxurycollection.com/tasman
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