With a gin renaissance (it’s tipped to take over vodka as the nation’s top spirit) and whisky no longer just reserved for grandfathers, Australia’s craft spirit scene is in full swing. Distillers are sprouting in all states, but one in particular offers optimum conditions for top-shelf quality.

With its crisp climate, bounty of indigenous ingredients and pure, soft water, Tasmania presents distillers with idyllic conditions for producing excellent spirits, a fact that Bill Lark was the first to exploit.

Lark and his wife Lyn first began producing whisky in 1992 and now they boast one of the country’s largest premium spirit distillers. The couple has inspired many to follow in their footsteps, including Nonesuch in Tasmania’s south-east.

“Nonesuch was established after a chance discussion with the Godfather of Australian distilling, Bill Lark,” says founder and distiller Rex Burdon.

“I had left the corporate world and I had an idea to use native Tasmanian botanicals to flavour the pure Tasmanian water we have access to. The Tasmanian Indigenous peoples flavoured water in that way. Bill suggested that if I wanted to use botanicals I should forget about using them with water and instead flavour alcohol and make gin.”

Burdon and Lark discussed the benefits of the English settlers bringing to Tassie the trees that sloes (the bluish-black fruit of the blackthorn) grow on, hence making sloe gin a very real possibility.

“Bill’s enthusiasm is infinite and soon I was developing a distillery.”

Nonesuch’s small batch approach means an intense attention to detail, sometimes at the expense of sales.

“We allow time to work its magic and the sloe gin is only ever bottled when the fruit and gin are balanced and the nose and colour are perfect,” Burdon says. “This means our product is not always available, but when people purchase a bottle they know it is as good as it can be.

The distillery welcomes visitors to their Whisky Making Experience, teaching them how to make their own craft spirit.

“They even get to fill a cask and sign that as part of the distilling team.”

In York Town, Strait Brands is also championing indigenous Tassie ingredients, such as sloe berries, native pepperberries and hazelnuts, in their spirits.

“Strait Tasmanian Hazelnut Gin is the world’s only hazelnut gin, launched in June 2016,” says managing director Philip Ridyard.

Ridyard believes that Strait’s unique spirit flavour profiles have contributed to their success. As well as the hazelnut gin, they offer a Tasmanian Native Pepperberry Vodka and an award-winning Strait Dry Gin, made from an organic lemon infusion.

“The new production facility at York Town will be built on the property from where the water is drawn – a super soft, low-calcium spring water – and so Strait Brands will bottle its spirit at source,” Ridyard says.

As for the reasons behind Tassie’s booming, world-class spirits scene? One glance across the state, at the likes of Hellyers Road whisky which gets shipped out to mainland Europe (including Scotland and Ireland) by the crate, and it’s clear there’s an artisan uprising here.

“Whisky distillers have had to diversify into gin to create cash flow while whisky matures. This has further stimulated the Tasmanian industry,” Ridyard says.

Burdon attributes it to the founders of the industry and a strong sense of community among local distillers.

“We benefit from the bar having been set so high by the founders of the industry in Tasmania – people like Bill and Lyn Lark and Patrick Maguire (Sullivans Cove),” Burdon says.

“We all assist each other and that comradeship means knowledge is shared, advice freely given and all that means everyone has amazing access to stored knowledge in order to make great spirit and continue what those people started.”

Get to know Tasmanian whisky and the people behind it at Tasmanian Whisky Week, August 4-13, taswhiskyweek.com

This article was brought to you by Tasmania – Go Behind the Scenery.

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