Husk Distillery: the ‘cane to cocktail’ approach

Cattle and cocktails don’t usually go together, but for NSW producer Paul Messenger, the two are intrinsically connected.

The Caribbean may be miles away from the agriculturally rich Tweed Valley in northern NSW.

But for Paul Messenger, it was a trip to the rum-making island nations, coupled with a passion for whiskey making, that was the catalyst for purchasing an existing cattleenterprise.

“We bought the farm specifically to make the rum,” Paul said.

More than 10 years later, Paul and his wife, Mandy, produce unique Australian rum made from fresh cane juice under the moniker Husk Distillery, with a “cane to cocktail” ethos driving every decision made on farm.

Spanning nearly 60ha, about 50 head of cattle of mixed breeds are run across non-irrigated land in North Tumbulgum, with about 12ha of land planted to cane this year.

The result is a uniquely Australian rum that differs from about 90 per cent of rum made worldwide, which is produced with a more traditional cane molasses process.

About 800 barrels of rum are ageing at present, for a minimum of two years.

Annual average production is about 2000 litres of alcohol.

Paul’s fascination with the success of Tasmanian whiskey-making in the 1990s spurred his interest in creating a drink unique to the NSW landscape.

Husk Distillery co-founder Paul Messenger was inspired by a holiday to the Caribbean to produce his own Australian-made rum. Pictures: Supplied

“The idea really took hold on a 2009 trip to the Caribbean,” Paul said.

“We discovered the vibrant and diverse world of rum, and I wondered why we didn’t produce a different style of rum here.

“Cane is part of the landscape here, and I just thought there’s an opportunity.”

Husk Rum head distiller Quentin Brival said the quality of the cane is of the highest importance, with all decisions on farm made with this at heart.

“It’s a bit like wine, there’s a focus on growing the best cane possible,” Quentin said.

“The idea is to have the paddock only 50 metres from the distillery. It’s a one-year cycle, and we control all of that with a light touch. We like to let nature take its course, and we harvest one a year.”

For the first five years, Paul and Mandy worked as the sole employees on farm, but now Husk Distillery employs 60 people across the farm.

Across a four-month span, the cane harvester will crush more than 500 tonnes of cane, extracting more than 230,000 litres of fresh virgin cane juice.

The fresh juice is then fermented and turned into rum, which is sold on-farm at the distillery, online via the Husk website, and across the country at Dan Murphy’s stores.

Bottles of Husk Pure Cane rum – the essence of the Husk Rum distillery – sell for about $69 online.

Sugarcane harvest at Husk Distillery, with head distiller Quentin Brival at the helm.

“That whole farm-to-bottle approach … it’s a true expression of the land and the terroir,” Quentin said.

Production of Husk Rum is limited to the harvest season from August to November, with a new crop sown in late April. When a new paddock is prepared it is ripped, hoed and laser-levelled for drainage.

“You plant the cane, and it’s a one-year cycle to mature,” Quentin said.

Cane grows fast during the warm, humid summer.

But when the cool of winter hits, the sugars in the plant concentrate, which plays a part in the flavour of the end product.

Harvest commences in late June, until November, with the use of a cane harvester machine.

“After that, the cane grows back. It’s a giant grass, we cut it, use it, and it grows back,” Quentin said.

“It’s a good culture, it doesn’t need to be overworked each harvest. Every five years or so, the ground becomes exhausted in terms of nutrients, and that’s when you give it a break.”

Traditionally, cane plantations would be burned as part of the harvest process.

Not at Husk Rum, Quentin said.

“When you cut sugar cane, it’s a big stick with leaves coming off it. The leaves are removed and they fall on the ground, and that creates a trash blanket,” Quentin said.

“Because we’re southern in the cane-growing region, it’s a little bit colder and that trash blanket doesn’t decompose as fast. We do not burn, we let the trash blanket cover the paddock, and we’ve seen over the years if you let it do its thing, it gets better and better breakdown, and during the growth phase of the cane – which is very fast – it’s very easy for weeds to invade and choke the cane.

“The trash blanket helps us control the weeds without having to spray with herbicides.”

Paul will be the first to admit: the Messengers are not cattle farmers.

But the cattle play an important role on-farm.

In 2012, the Messengers settled on a patch of land that was once a dairy farm, before being converted to a grazing cattle enterprise.

After an 18-month process to obtain a DA and Excise licence, the Messengers were approved by August 2012 and immediately converted an old farm shed into a pilot plant distillery.

“By December we had planted one acre of sugarcane and cut six tonnes of cane from our neighbours farm before finally filling two barrels of what would become Australia’s first ever Agricole rum,” Paul said.

Keeping the cattle, Paul now uses the livestock as part of the rum-making process, using the refuse and waste from the distilling process in a closed-loop on the farm.

The spent wash from the distilling process – a mixture of water, yeast and residual nutrients – was once pumped into pits and then a reed bed.

But serendipitously when a pump broke one day, Paul discovered a new way to use the discarded wash.

“We found the cattle were getting in and drinking it all,” Paul said.

“It’s a common thing to feed spent wash to cattle, so we started doing that permanently. As soon as the cattle see you coming, they start running and kicking their heels, they just love it.”

Between 40 and 50 mixed breed cattle, mostly steers, are run across the property. Cattle are sold direct to the abattoir.

About 5000 litres of spent wash is sent through a series of four large cattle troughs daily.

Plans for the future include cultivation of another 8ha (20 acres) of paddocks, and plans to start irrigating. A crop is run for five to 10 years, before being left fallow for a year. A soyabean crop will be planted in the fallow year, with cattle allowed access to graze before replanting.

“We don’t generally irrigate here,” Paul said.

“Generally speaking, in the Tweed, no one irrigates. It’s a high water table with high rainfall. But we’re modelling to see what impact it would have to irrigate some of this waste water on to the paddocks. It’ll add about 200ml of water a year to our cane crop.”

At Husk, all decisions are made with sustainability at its heart.

This includes keeping consumer connection at the forefront of the business.

The range of Husk rums, and the addition of a line of gin including the Ink colour-changing gin, all illustrate the sense of place and connection to land that Paul is proud of.

“It’s hard not to overstate the challenge of making a fresh cane juice rum distillery,” Paul said.

“It’s swimming against the tide to some extent, and it’s difficult, and it’s involved. The challenge has been to take something that is challenging, and costly to do, and to work out how to do it in a sustainable, cost-effective way.”

But despite the challenges, the time is right for conversations about the future of food – and beverage – production in Australia.

“We’ve seen in the past wineries becoming fashionable … everyone wanted to have a winery in the 80s, that was the first thing to become about differentiating a product that could have just been a commodity,” Paul said.

“You’ve had the craft beer movement, and spirits have now followed. It’s gone in parallel with food: people want to know how their food is made, where it comes from, and understand the backstory.”