TasWeekend: Ryan Hartshorn is in high spirits after his sheeps’ whey vodka was voted the world’s best

It has been a busy 12 months for Tasmanian vodka entrepreneur Ryan Hartshorn, snaring a range of national and international awards.

Diane Rae, of Grandvewe Cheeses at Brooke St Pier, pouring the award-winning Hartshorn vodka made by her son Ryan Hartshorn. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

IT has been a busy 12 months for Tasmanian vodka entrepreneur Ryan Hartshorn. Not only was his Hartshorn Distillery vodka named the world’s best at last year’s World Vodka Awards, he backed up the win last month with a few more awards including the title of Australia’s best vodka for the third year running, as well as winning gold for his unique, handpainted bottle design.

Hartshorn’s face is plastered on billboards and in-flight magazines as he steps into the role of brand ambassador for Qantas. He’s also building a new distillery and visitor centre on his family’s Grandvewe Cheese farm at Birchs Bay and expects to begin exporting his vodka and gin to China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada later this year (his products already go to Japan).

Hartshorn Distillery now sells 44,000 bottles of vodka and gin a year, quite an impressive feat given 34-year-old Hartshorn knew little about spirits when he began distilling four years ago and was simply looking to diversify the family’s cheese business.

Ryan Hartshorn says he wants people to be able to taste the flavours of his vodka. Picture: MATT THOMPSON

Hartshorn was 19 when he moved to Tasmania from Queensland with his mum and his sister to start Grandvewe Cheeses. He was part way through a business degree at the time, which he finished at UTAS, while also helping to run the family business. And while the business was a success, Hartshorn felt he needed to do something different.

“It got to a point where I was either going to quit the business or create my own,’’ he recalls.

Grandvewe had always been an environmentally conscious business, with minimal waste. So transforming sheep whey — a waste by-product of cheese making — into vodka (and later, gin) seemed like a smart idea.

He purchased a spirit still off eBay and taught himself to craft the perfect vodka with the help of various online forums.

Hartshorn had not been a huge spirit consumer prior to making his own, so aimed to create something he personally liked the taste of. “I was just making things I enjoy, and hoping others would have the same palate as me,’’ he says. “Luckily that resonated with people.’’

He says filtered spirits had traditionally been considered the best, but he’s successfully challenging that notion.

The award-winning non-filtered Hartshorn sheep whey vodka made by Ryan Hartshorn Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

“We’re flipping the concept of vodka on its head,’’ Hartshorn says of his creations, which are sold at bottleshops locally and interstate as well as from his Brooke St Pier store and directly from the farm.

“There’s been this idea that the more it’s filtered, the more it tastes like water and the better the vodka is. But I’ve gone the opposite way. I don’t want to filter it, so you can actually taste the flavours and textures. It’s a big learning experience … everyone is used to vodka being that thing you mix and hopefully you don’t taste it. Now we’re serving it in a way that makes you want to enjoy it like a whisky.’’

His award-winning black bottles, handpainted so no two are identical, make a bold statement on spirit racks in high-end venues such as The Glass House, Evolve, Society Salamanca and Mona’s Void Bar, where staff create cocktails that bring out the natural flavour of the sheep whey vodka, rather than masking it.

Hartshorn still physically touches every bottle, handwriting his autograph on each one before it is packed for sale.