I am going to dump information about the history of rum in Australia into this thread as I find it before it is forgotten and erased by multi nationals that can buy history.
The heritage-listed Beenleigh Rum Distillery is the oldest registered distillery in Australia, and is a rare survivor of Australia's early sugar industry. It commenced operations in 1884, and was the legal successor to a floating moonshine still, the SS Walrus, which drifted between cane plantations evading police in the early 19th century.
The distillery was developed to include a blending hall, bottling plant, warehouse and administration facilities.[6] It is located on the bank of the Albert River in Eagleby, Queensland (once a part of Beenleigh), and is a landmark on the river flats in the area.
Over the years, the once famous Beenleigh Rum lost its prominent place in Australia to Bundaberg Rum.
In 2003, the Beenleigh Rum brand name was sold to Vok Beverages, a subsidiary of Adelaide based beverage company Bickford's Australia. As of 2011 the brand is still owned by the 100% Australian owned company and is experiencing double digit growth.
The historic Beenleigh Rum Distillery was sold to rival Inner Circle Rum in 2001 for $2.7 million. Inner Circle was, in turn, purchased by multinational Lion Nathan in 2007. Lion Nathan now uses the Beenleigh distillery to produce rum under the Inner Circle rum brand.
Courtesy Wikipedia
The SS Walrus
SS Walrus was built at Cleveland and originally operated as a schooner. In 1869, it was taken over by the Pioneer Floating Sugar Comapany and fitted up for production of sugar and rum. It travelled up and down the Albert and Logan Rivers anchoring at wharves near the cane-fields. Its mill was made at the Queensland Foundry by Smellie and Company and was capable of crushing two tons of sugar a day and could make rum out of molasses. The Walrus ceased working as a distillery in 1871. In 1873 it was retired completely.
Courtesy http://www.rumportal.com
Beenleigh distillery bought the old pot still that was used on the SS Walrus when the boat was eventually put to rest.
Rum History- Australia
Rum History- Australia
in goes your eye out
THE COLOURFUL HISTORY OF DISTILLING IN AUSTRALASIA
Willie Simpson
Abstract
Colourful early history of distilling in Australasia includes Hokonui moonshiners in New Zealand's South Island and proliferation of distilleries along the Hobart Rivulet in 1830s. More recently, Corio whisky distillery, Geelong and Wilson's Distillery, Dunedin have both closed down but a revival of boutique whisky operations has principally been focussed in Tasmania with Lark's, Small Concern, Tasmanian Distillery and Whisky Tasmania. St Agnes brandy distillery in Riverina remains the sole Australian operation dedicated to high-quality, aged brandy while Inner Circle pot-still produced rum operation was revived in recent years by businessman Stuart Gilbert. Other curiosities include Kellybrook Apple Brandy and Bakery Hill whisky distillery.
Key Words: illicit stills ,rum corps, Van Dieman’s Land, moonshine
Introduction
An overview of the history of distilling in Australasia, from the earliest illicit activities of colonial times through to the modern day revival of premium spirit production, with particular focus on the more colourful episodes of our spiritual progress.
Colony of New South Wales
There is no written record of the first man or woman who distilled spirits in Australasia but we can safely assume that it occurred shortly after European settlement arrived in Sydney in 1788. And it’s hardly surprising that such a furtive and illicit act has slipped through the pages of history.
Rum – notoriously - and spirits in general were a form of currency in the fledgling colony of New South Wales and the profitable lure of distilling, no doubt, proved irresistible to certain enterprising types. Significantly, by 1796, Governor John Hunter was becoming increasingly alarmed by the widespread number of “illicit distilleries of spirituous liquors” around the colony.
“I find it has been in practice here some time and appears not to have been carried on with much secrecy,” Hunter wrote to his patron the Duke of Portland in England. ”Many of the settlers and others have fallen upon a method of erecting stills and distilling a most noxious and unwholesome spirit, which not only serves to destroy the health of those who use it, but it also consumes a quantity of grain which would otherwise come to market.”
Governor Hunter issued an edict against such pioneering distillers and perhaps laid claim as the colony’s first drinks reviewer when he described the quality of the locally distilled spirits to be: “of so poisonous a nature as must in a vary (sic) short time ruin the good health of the settlement”
And there is plenty of historical evidence to support Governor Hunter’s concern about the colony’s alcohol consumption habits, but the punishment to be meted out to anyone caught distilling is rather vague and only states it “will effectually prevent the repetition of so dangerous an offence”. Which probably meant destroying any distilling equipment that might be found by the special constables the Governor appointed to seek out those pernicious distillers
Such an edict was presumably about as effective as trying to ban extra marital sex in the colony. Rather than closing down the illicit stills, Hunter’s move simply forced their owners to venture further out in the bush to avoid detection, according to one historian
So who were these pioneers of Australasian distilling and what were they making? Undoubtedly, among the many Irish and Scottish newcomers, there were some who knew how to make poteen or usquebaugh, using rudimentary equipment (a pot and a copper pipe “worm” were the essentials). At the time, illegal distilling thrived in the less accessible parts of Ireland and Scotland and it’s worth pointing out that the first licence to make Scotch whisky, legally, wasn’t issued until 1824.
A portion of the first successful harvests of wheat, maize and potatoes in the colony, no doubt found their way to various ramshackle copper stills where it was turned into a clear spirit of dubious quality. Some historical sources mention “rum” being produced by illicit colonial distillers but, at the time, “rum” was widely used as a generic term for all manner of spirits. Some form of rum may be been distilled from imported molasses (the local sugar cane industry would be established later) but, more likely, the colonial firewater was blended with rum imported from Mauritius or India, which arrived in Sydney Town in prodigious quantities.
Much has been written about the infamous Rum Rebellion of 1808 when Governor William Bligh faced the second mutiny of his adventurous career. Bligh had attempted to stamp out the predatory activities of the corrupt New South Wales Corps (widely known as the “Rum Corps”) who controlled the economy of the gaol-colony using rum – both the imported and the locally distilled variety - as the common currency.
Many of the early ships that arrived in Port Jackson were laden with spirits as well as general provisions, both of which were traded to the fledgling colony by means of bills on the British Treasury. In 1792 Lieutenant Governor Grose purchased some 7,597 gallons of “new American spirits” (presumably, bourbon or rye whiskey) from the captain of the Hope, telling his English superiors that the ship’s master “would not let him purchase the provisions if he did not first buy up the spirits”
So the pattern was set and substantial quantities of spirits continued to arrive in the colony and were purchased and re-sold at considerable profit (often as much as a 2,000% mark-up) by the “Rum Corps”. In one nine-month period during the 1790s more than 45,000 gallons of spirits arrived in Sydney aboard just four ships; later, between September 1800 and December 1801, 42,816 proof gallons entered the colony at a time when the European population of NSW was a mere 4, 930 (in other words, around 10 gallons per head of population).
Yet one historian claims that, based on official records, consumption of wine and spirits at Sydney was comparatively little different to that in England, though he concedes that “it is probable that some speculative shipments were not recorded and indiscriminate landings occurred from foreign ships”. And he obviously hasn’t accounted for the illicit distilling that thrived and whose products were inevitably used to adulterate imported spirits.
Van Diemen’s Land
Meanwhile, Van Diemen’s Land (as Tasmania was then known) was settled by Europeans from 1803 onwards and in Hobart Town “there was brewing and distilling from the harvesting of the first grain crops until regulations interfered”. Presumably, that “interference” similarly drove any illicit distillers further into the colonial bush.
In his historical era best-seller “The Potato Factory” (set in convict-era Hobart), author Bryce Courtenay’s heroine Mary Abacus turns potatoes into poteen using a cunningly-disguised still hidden inside the Female Factory which housed female convicts. After she earns her freedom, Mary works for Peter Degraves at the Cascade Brewery and later opens her own brewery called the “Potato Factory”, which specializes in Temperance Ale and other wholesome beverages. While this is obviously a work of creative fiction, the story of Mary Abacus touches on several relevant themes, not least the power of the Temperance movement at the time which condemned the evil of imbibing spirits while supporting consumption of more wholesome beer.
Fiction aside, when Peter Degraves arrived in Hobart in 1824 there were already several legal distilleries operating in the colony and it would be 10 years before he established his Cascade Brewery, named after the cascading waterfalls rising in the foothills of Mount Wellington. The first distillery had been established by Towers & Co in 1822 beside the Hobart Rivulet and later became known as Midwood’s Sorrell Distillery; by the end of 1824 there were three more operating in the same area. Some were substantial operations, with the main building of Lowes Distillery measuring 142 feet by 20 feet and surrounded, not surprisingly, by a 10 foot high stone wall. In fact, this building eventually became the Female Factory and the remaining façade can be seen to this day in South Hobart.
By 1824 there were 16 legal distilleries operating in the whole of Van Diemen’s Land and, presumably, countless illegal enterprises. In October of that year “a still containing 20 gallons of spirit and three mash tubs were found near Browns River by a party of soldiers”. While early distilleries favoured the Hobart Rivulet, in the northern city of Launceston Distillery Creek Gorge was so-named because it was also the site for several distilleries,and in Campbell Town: “The first venture undertaken in the district was the establishment of a distillery by Reid, Turnbull and Company in 1827”.
One historian claims “the market was flooded” and that by 1830 only one Hobart distillery, Midwood’s, was still in operation. Another cites “poor harvests and fierce competition”, while one source claims that “distillation in Tasmania discontinued” in 1829 when the government “decided that more revenue could be obtained from duty on imported spirits”. “The distillers were compensated for the loss of their business but the measure was an unpopular one. This, of course, encouraged traffic in contraband liquor and illicit stills were soon in operation, with the support and connivance of many of the population.”
It seems likely the colonial government bowed to pressure from the Temperance movement because Governor George Arthur steeply increased the excise on locally produced spirits in 1826 and encouraged brewing activities instead. Later, in 1838, Governor John Franklin imposed a total prohibition on colonial distilling and by 1839 no legal distilleries were operating in Van Diemen’s Land.
NSW – legal distilling
When distilling was duly legalized in New South Wales, one of the first to take up a licence was James Underwood, who established his Sydney Distillery in Paddington in 1823. The distillery specialized in gin and the enterprise is “said to probably be Sydney’s oldest commercial factory”. The Sydney Distillery paid excise on 6,812 proof gallons during 1824-25 and Underwood built a grand colonial mansion named Juniper Hall (in honour of the chief botanical flavouring used in gin) which still stands in Oxford St, Paddington.
In 1837 the NSW Government encouraged the distillation of colonial spirits from sugar but immediately regretted the decision. A committee on colonial distillation from the NSW Legislative Council reported in 1839 that it had been “an impolite measure” and which led to “the great loss which the Revenue has sustained by the various frauds which have been practiced by means of Colonial Distillation, and the further mischief which must arise from a continuation of the System”.
The report went much further, calling for “the manufacture of Distilled Spirits within this Colony, and its dependencies, [to] be prohibited by Law”. It seems that the “fraud and mischief” mentioned, refers to the fact that only a fraction of colonial spirits – both legal and illicit – were being declared for excise duty. “The spirit made in the Colony, it is well known, is mixed in a very considerable proportion with Foreign Rum, and detection is so difficult, that the fraud may be practised with almost a certainty of impunity.
New Zealand
Similar mischief occurred in New Zealand during the early decades of European settlement where, despite the total prohibition on alcohol in many areas, illicit distilling was alive and well. Many Scots emigrated to the Otago and Southland districts of the South Island and the Hokonui Hills outside Gore were a notorious moonshiners’ paradise. The late 1800s was “the time when there were more stills smoking away in the hills than there were cheese factories”.
This colourful historic era is the basis for the present day Hokonui Moonshine Museum in Gore, which pays particular credit to the Scottish widow Mary MacRae who arrived in the district in 1872 with her seven children. The widow MacRae was apparently able to sustain her brood through whisky-making activities in the Hokonui Hills and was famously adept at outwitting the local police force. She supposedly once hid a small barrel of whisky under her “voluminous skirts” when a police constable from Invercargill arrived.
A century or so after Mary MacRae was leading the authorities on a merry chase, New Zealand’s first legal whisky distillery – Dunedin’s Wilson Distillery - began operations in 1974. Initially it produced two blended whiskies, Wilson’s and 45 South, and in 1984 a single malt Lammerlaw was released.
The company was acquired by Seagrams in the 1980s but production ceased in 1997 and, unfortunately, the distillery was dismantled in 2002. A substantial stock of mature whisky produced during 1987-1993 was acquired by an independent liquor distributor (New Zealand Malt Whisky Co.) and is currently being marketed as Milford Single Malt.
Brandy & Rum
During the late 1800s in Australia, two other main spirit producing industries came into their own – the brandy industry was a natural extension of the wine industry, particularly in South Australia, while rum production evolved from Queensland’s flourishing sugar cane industry.
Beenleigh Distillery claims to be the country’s oldest registered distillery and has recently been given a second lease of life as the headquarters for Inner Circle Rum production. The Beenleigh story has an interesting link with one James Stewart who obtained a licence in 1869 to distill rum from a pot still aboard his rickety old riverboat, the SS Walrus, which plied its trade on the Albert and Logan Rivers near Brisbane.
One strict condition of the licence was that “an inspector was on board at the time of distillation”, but this regulation proved impossible to implement. Stewart probably made a mistake in declaring 14, 224 proof gallons of dark rum production for 1870 and then only 4,151 proof gallons the following year. The excisemen immediately deregistered his licence and intended to confiscate his still but, for the next 13 years, Stewart led them a merry dance until the SS Walrus ran aground in the Albert River in 1883.
Stewart managed to sell his pot still to a couple of nearby sugar growers who obtained a fresh licence and launched the Beenleigh Distillery. The old copper still was used for another three years or so until a devastating flood swept much of the distillery away and it eventually had to be rebuilt.
Rather than floods, it was two major fires that have hit the Bundaberg Distillery since it was established in 1888 by a group of sugar millers in Bundaberg. Fires destroyed the distillery in 1907 and again in 1936, when rum flowed into the Burnett River and - legend has it - the locals feasted on fish from the river that had been first marinated in rum and then cooked by the rum-fuelled fire. (Interestingly, an article in the Courier-Mail in 1988 featured local fishermen complaining that waste from the Beenleigh Distillery was killing prawns and fish in the Albert River.)
In 1899, when the Boer War broke out, the armed forces bought the entire production of Bundaberg Rum which was sent as rations for Australians troops serving in South Africa. During World War One, with the distillery freshly rebuilt after the 1907 fire, Bundaberg Rum again sustained Australian soldiers serving overseas and the country’s affectionate relationship with “Bundy” was sealed.
While rum and Bundy, in particular, remain popular with Australian drinkers, brandy has largely gone out of fashion in recent decades, though South Australians still consume it in quantities disproportionate to the rest of the country. When the newly-built Chateau Tanunda in the Barossa Valley published a promotional booklet in 1913, they claimed straight-faced, apparently, to be “the most magnificent and pretentious Brandy Distillery and Winery that has yet been erected in the Southern Hemisphere”. The booklet claims that “each season” 500,000 gallons of wine was distilled for brandy and that: “On the unquestioned authority of the Commonwealth Excise department it is stated that the Chateau Tanunda Limited hold nine-sixteenths of the total stocks of Australian brandy”, in other words – more than half.
At the time, brandy was regarded as a quasi medicinal pick-me-up and all Australian brandy-makers produced a labelled “hospital brandy” at relatively low retail cost. In their booklet, Chateau Tanunda proudly claims to have supplied brandy to Adelaide Hospital, Kalgoorlie Hospital, Perth Hospital, The Sydney Hospital, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, as well as Guy’s Hospital in London.
Some local brandy makers sought to produce higher quality brandy, beyond the “hospital” variety and the family-owned Angoves company continues to do so with their St Agnes range (which is the Australian brandy market leader). Angoves maintains a stock of some 5,000 barrels of maturing brandy at Renmark and their St Agnes Very Old Brandy has won many international awards over the years; pot still brandies used in the blend are at least 20 years old (some as old as 50 years), yet at a recommended retail price of $60 it, surely, represents one of the great Australian grog bargains.
20th Century and Beyond
For much of the 20th century production of domestic spirits continued to grow, particularly after the Second World War. In the financial year of 1964/65 federal excise was paid on 1,009,300 proof gallons of Australian brandy, 359,100 proof gallons of domestic whisky, 371,900 proof gallons of locally produced gin, and 111,200 proof gallons of vodka.
By the mid 1960s there were some 25 brands of Australian whisky on the market with Corio the best-known. The Corio Distillery was established in Geelong in 1928 and produced low-cost brands like Corio, Black Opal and Bond 7, aimed at the mixed drink market. It is claimed that the formidable and long-serving Victorian Premier Sir Henry Bolte started each day – while in office – with a glass of Corio whisky and several Turf cigarettes34, a testament to his robust constitution and down-to-earth appetite for all things Australian.
The Corio Distillery was taken over by UK spirit company United Distillers in the late 1970s and closed down, along with its various brands, so as not to compete with their own imported Scotch and Irish whiskies. The era of Australian whisky production had come to an abrupt but, thankfully, temporary end.
Spiritual Revival
In the mid-1980s pioneering whisky producers Bill and Lyn Lark decided there was no reason why high-quality single malt whisky couldn’t be made in Tasmania. Having acquired a tiny, antique still, the Larks then faced their greatest obstacle: changing federal legislation covering distillation. Amazingly, the Commonwealth Distillation Act 1901 permitted only large-scale operations, stipulating a minimum wash still capacity of around 2,700 litres. The Larks approached their local parliamentary member Duncan Kerr who listened sympathetically and immediately rang the federal Minister for Customs Barry Jones. In a matter of weeks the legislative regulations were amended and they were soon granted a general distillers’ licence, the first issued in Tasmania since the 1830s.35
The Lark Distillery currently operates a 1,500-litre still, producing around 10,000 litres of whisky annually, along with a range of spirits and liqueurs, including several flavoured with the Tasmanian pepperberry.
Perhaps inspired by the Larks’enterprise, the Tasmania Distillery was a somewhat audacious operation when it kicked off in 1994, utilising a replica 1860 French “alambic charentas” pot still located in the historic former Hobart gasworks. The business has undergone two changes of ownership in recent years, the distillery equipment is currently in storage and Hobart Single Malt and Old Hobart Cask Strength have been released from older stocks of whisky.
Whisky Tasmania is by the far the most ambitious new whisky venture in the antipodes, with more than 2,500 casks (500,000 litres) currently maturing in their bond stores. The business is a subsidiary of a privately-owned milk company located in Burnie, on the northwest coast of Tasmania. The stainless steel distillery was built locally at a cost of more than A$2 million and produced its first whisky run in January 1999. There are plans to release the first whisky later this year. In its first three years of operation Bakery Hill Distillery produced the equivalent of a mere 5,000 bottles, but the initial whisky released in early 2004 is already attracting widespread praise. Operating from the Melbourne suburb of Bayswater, David Baker is a biochemist who previously worked in the food industry before following his passion into whisky making.
A nearby craft brewery supplies the wash and Baker distils twice in a 1,000-litre pot still he commissioned from UK manufacturer John Dore & Co. He uses a portion of peated malt and the whiskies are matured in 50 and 100-litre casks, which promotes an accelerated ageing process in the smaller casks.
The Bakery Hill range is unfiltered, bottled at 46 % A/V and includes Classic Malt, Double Wood, and Peated Malt. The Bakery Hill Peated Cask Strength was named Best Small Distillery Whisky of the Year in international whisky writer Jim Murray’s 2005 Whisky Bible, showing beyond doubt that there is a future for high quality spirits produced in this country.
Inner Circle Comes Full Circle
But perhaps the best news story involving Australian spirits has been the revival of Inner Circle Rum in recent years. Inner Circle Rum was initially produced by the Colonial Sugar Refinery as an in-house gift for - as the name suggests – the “inner circle” of upper management and favoured clients. The rum won international awards, rapidly gained a cult status and, somewhat belatedly, was released commercially in 1970. But by 1986, tighter waste disposal regulations and rising real estate prices caused CSR to close down their Pyrmont distillery and quit rum production completely.
Sydney businessman Stuart Gilbert had enjoyed Inner Circle Rum as a young man and wondered why it had abruptly disappeared from bottleshop shelves. In 2000 he purchased the Inner Circle trademark, employed the retired distiller Malcolm Campbell and had the rum produced by pot still distillation in Suva, Fiji.
Since being relaunched in 2002 in three different bottling strengths, Inner Circle Rum has won multiple awards including Best Rum (twice) at the International Spirits Competition held in London. Encouraged by commercial and competition success, Gilbert bought the defunct Beenleigh Distillery in early 2004 and recommissioned the entire plant under Campbell’s guidance.
In November 2005, the first run of pot still Inner Circle Rum was produced at what is Australia’s oldest registered distillery and the story of local spirits has completed a neat historical circle. More than anything else, the Inner Circle Rum story shows that there is a place for the highest-quality, premium spirits to be made here in Australia.
The Simpson Willie Paper
Willie Simpson
Abstract
Colourful early history of distilling in Australasia includes Hokonui moonshiners in New Zealand's South Island and proliferation of distilleries along the Hobart Rivulet in 1830s. More recently, Corio whisky distillery, Geelong and Wilson's Distillery, Dunedin have both closed down but a revival of boutique whisky operations has principally been focussed in Tasmania with Lark's, Small Concern, Tasmanian Distillery and Whisky Tasmania. St Agnes brandy distillery in Riverina remains the sole Australian operation dedicated to high-quality, aged brandy while Inner Circle pot-still produced rum operation was revived in recent years by businessman Stuart Gilbert. Other curiosities include Kellybrook Apple Brandy and Bakery Hill whisky distillery.
Key Words: illicit stills ,rum corps, Van Dieman’s Land, moonshine
Introduction
An overview of the history of distilling in Australasia, from the earliest illicit activities of colonial times through to the modern day revival of premium spirit production, with particular focus on the more colourful episodes of our spiritual progress.
Colony of New South Wales
There is no written record of the first man or woman who distilled spirits in Australasia but we can safely assume that it occurred shortly after European settlement arrived in Sydney in 1788. And it’s hardly surprising that such a furtive and illicit act has slipped through the pages of history.
Rum – notoriously - and spirits in general were a form of currency in the fledgling colony of New South Wales and the profitable lure of distilling, no doubt, proved irresistible to certain enterprising types. Significantly, by 1796, Governor John Hunter was becoming increasingly alarmed by the widespread number of “illicit distilleries of spirituous liquors” around the colony.
“I find it has been in practice here some time and appears not to have been carried on with much secrecy,” Hunter wrote to his patron the Duke of Portland in England. ”Many of the settlers and others have fallen upon a method of erecting stills and distilling a most noxious and unwholesome spirit, which not only serves to destroy the health of those who use it, but it also consumes a quantity of grain which would otherwise come to market.”
Governor Hunter issued an edict against such pioneering distillers and perhaps laid claim as the colony’s first drinks reviewer when he described the quality of the locally distilled spirits to be: “of so poisonous a nature as must in a vary (sic) short time ruin the good health of the settlement”
And there is plenty of historical evidence to support Governor Hunter’s concern about the colony’s alcohol consumption habits, but the punishment to be meted out to anyone caught distilling is rather vague and only states it “will effectually prevent the repetition of so dangerous an offence”. Which probably meant destroying any distilling equipment that might be found by the special constables the Governor appointed to seek out those pernicious distillers
Such an edict was presumably about as effective as trying to ban extra marital sex in the colony. Rather than closing down the illicit stills, Hunter’s move simply forced their owners to venture further out in the bush to avoid detection, according to one historian
So who were these pioneers of Australasian distilling and what were they making? Undoubtedly, among the many Irish and Scottish newcomers, there were some who knew how to make poteen or usquebaugh, using rudimentary equipment (a pot and a copper pipe “worm” were the essentials). At the time, illegal distilling thrived in the less accessible parts of Ireland and Scotland and it’s worth pointing out that the first licence to make Scotch whisky, legally, wasn’t issued until 1824.
A portion of the first successful harvests of wheat, maize and potatoes in the colony, no doubt found their way to various ramshackle copper stills where it was turned into a clear spirit of dubious quality. Some historical sources mention “rum” being produced by illicit colonial distillers but, at the time, “rum” was widely used as a generic term for all manner of spirits. Some form of rum may be been distilled from imported molasses (the local sugar cane industry would be established later) but, more likely, the colonial firewater was blended with rum imported from Mauritius or India, which arrived in Sydney Town in prodigious quantities.
Much has been written about the infamous Rum Rebellion of 1808 when Governor William Bligh faced the second mutiny of his adventurous career. Bligh had attempted to stamp out the predatory activities of the corrupt New South Wales Corps (widely known as the “Rum Corps”) who controlled the economy of the gaol-colony using rum – both the imported and the locally distilled variety - as the common currency.
Many of the early ships that arrived in Port Jackson were laden with spirits as well as general provisions, both of which were traded to the fledgling colony by means of bills on the British Treasury. In 1792 Lieutenant Governor Grose purchased some 7,597 gallons of “new American spirits” (presumably, bourbon or rye whiskey) from the captain of the Hope, telling his English superiors that the ship’s master “would not let him purchase the provisions if he did not first buy up the spirits”
So the pattern was set and substantial quantities of spirits continued to arrive in the colony and were purchased and re-sold at considerable profit (often as much as a 2,000% mark-up) by the “Rum Corps”. In one nine-month period during the 1790s more than 45,000 gallons of spirits arrived in Sydney aboard just four ships; later, between September 1800 and December 1801, 42,816 proof gallons entered the colony at a time when the European population of NSW was a mere 4, 930 (in other words, around 10 gallons per head of population).
Yet one historian claims that, based on official records, consumption of wine and spirits at Sydney was comparatively little different to that in England, though he concedes that “it is probable that some speculative shipments were not recorded and indiscriminate landings occurred from foreign ships”. And he obviously hasn’t accounted for the illicit distilling that thrived and whose products were inevitably used to adulterate imported spirits.
Van Diemen’s Land
Meanwhile, Van Diemen’s Land (as Tasmania was then known) was settled by Europeans from 1803 onwards and in Hobart Town “there was brewing and distilling from the harvesting of the first grain crops until regulations interfered”. Presumably, that “interference” similarly drove any illicit distillers further into the colonial bush.
In his historical era best-seller “The Potato Factory” (set in convict-era Hobart), author Bryce Courtenay’s heroine Mary Abacus turns potatoes into poteen using a cunningly-disguised still hidden inside the Female Factory which housed female convicts. After she earns her freedom, Mary works for Peter Degraves at the Cascade Brewery and later opens her own brewery called the “Potato Factory”, which specializes in Temperance Ale and other wholesome beverages. While this is obviously a work of creative fiction, the story of Mary Abacus touches on several relevant themes, not least the power of the Temperance movement at the time which condemned the evil of imbibing spirits while supporting consumption of more wholesome beer.
Fiction aside, when Peter Degraves arrived in Hobart in 1824 there were already several legal distilleries operating in the colony and it would be 10 years before he established his Cascade Brewery, named after the cascading waterfalls rising in the foothills of Mount Wellington. The first distillery had been established by Towers & Co in 1822 beside the Hobart Rivulet and later became known as Midwood’s Sorrell Distillery; by the end of 1824 there were three more operating in the same area. Some were substantial operations, with the main building of Lowes Distillery measuring 142 feet by 20 feet and surrounded, not surprisingly, by a 10 foot high stone wall. In fact, this building eventually became the Female Factory and the remaining façade can be seen to this day in South Hobart.
By 1824 there were 16 legal distilleries operating in the whole of Van Diemen’s Land and, presumably, countless illegal enterprises. In October of that year “a still containing 20 gallons of spirit and three mash tubs were found near Browns River by a party of soldiers”. While early distilleries favoured the Hobart Rivulet, in the northern city of Launceston Distillery Creek Gorge was so-named because it was also the site for several distilleries,and in Campbell Town: “The first venture undertaken in the district was the establishment of a distillery by Reid, Turnbull and Company in 1827”.
One historian claims “the market was flooded” and that by 1830 only one Hobart distillery, Midwood’s, was still in operation. Another cites “poor harvests and fierce competition”, while one source claims that “distillation in Tasmania discontinued” in 1829 when the government “decided that more revenue could be obtained from duty on imported spirits”. “The distillers were compensated for the loss of their business but the measure was an unpopular one. This, of course, encouraged traffic in contraband liquor and illicit stills were soon in operation, with the support and connivance of many of the population.”
It seems likely the colonial government bowed to pressure from the Temperance movement because Governor George Arthur steeply increased the excise on locally produced spirits in 1826 and encouraged brewing activities instead. Later, in 1838, Governor John Franklin imposed a total prohibition on colonial distilling and by 1839 no legal distilleries were operating in Van Diemen’s Land.
NSW – legal distilling
When distilling was duly legalized in New South Wales, one of the first to take up a licence was James Underwood, who established his Sydney Distillery in Paddington in 1823. The distillery specialized in gin and the enterprise is “said to probably be Sydney’s oldest commercial factory”. The Sydney Distillery paid excise on 6,812 proof gallons during 1824-25 and Underwood built a grand colonial mansion named Juniper Hall (in honour of the chief botanical flavouring used in gin) which still stands in Oxford St, Paddington.
In 1837 the NSW Government encouraged the distillation of colonial spirits from sugar but immediately regretted the decision. A committee on colonial distillation from the NSW Legislative Council reported in 1839 that it had been “an impolite measure” and which led to “the great loss which the Revenue has sustained by the various frauds which have been practiced by means of Colonial Distillation, and the further mischief which must arise from a continuation of the System”.
The report went much further, calling for “the manufacture of Distilled Spirits within this Colony, and its dependencies, [to] be prohibited by Law”. It seems that the “fraud and mischief” mentioned, refers to the fact that only a fraction of colonial spirits – both legal and illicit – were being declared for excise duty. “The spirit made in the Colony, it is well known, is mixed in a very considerable proportion with Foreign Rum, and detection is so difficult, that the fraud may be practised with almost a certainty of impunity.
New Zealand
Similar mischief occurred in New Zealand during the early decades of European settlement where, despite the total prohibition on alcohol in many areas, illicit distilling was alive and well. Many Scots emigrated to the Otago and Southland districts of the South Island and the Hokonui Hills outside Gore were a notorious moonshiners’ paradise. The late 1800s was “the time when there were more stills smoking away in the hills than there were cheese factories”.
This colourful historic era is the basis for the present day Hokonui Moonshine Museum in Gore, which pays particular credit to the Scottish widow Mary MacRae who arrived in the district in 1872 with her seven children. The widow MacRae was apparently able to sustain her brood through whisky-making activities in the Hokonui Hills and was famously adept at outwitting the local police force. She supposedly once hid a small barrel of whisky under her “voluminous skirts” when a police constable from Invercargill arrived.
A century or so after Mary MacRae was leading the authorities on a merry chase, New Zealand’s first legal whisky distillery – Dunedin’s Wilson Distillery - began operations in 1974. Initially it produced two blended whiskies, Wilson’s and 45 South, and in 1984 a single malt Lammerlaw was released.
The company was acquired by Seagrams in the 1980s but production ceased in 1997 and, unfortunately, the distillery was dismantled in 2002. A substantial stock of mature whisky produced during 1987-1993 was acquired by an independent liquor distributor (New Zealand Malt Whisky Co.) and is currently being marketed as Milford Single Malt.
Brandy & Rum
During the late 1800s in Australia, two other main spirit producing industries came into their own – the brandy industry was a natural extension of the wine industry, particularly in South Australia, while rum production evolved from Queensland’s flourishing sugar cane industry.
Beenleigh Distillery claims to be the country’s oldest registered distillery and has recently been given a second lease of life as the headquarters for Inner Circle Rum production. The Beenleigh story has an interesting link with one James Stewart who obtained a licence in 1869 to distill rum from a pot still aboard his rickety old riverboat, the SS Walrus, which plied its trade on the Albert and Logan Rivers near Brisbane.
One strict condition of the licence was that “an inspector was on board at the time of distillation”, but this regulation proved impossible to implement. Stewart probably made a mistake in declaring 14, 224 proof gallons of dark rum production for 1870 and then only 4,151 proof gallons the following year. The excisemen immediately deregistered his licence and intended to confiscate his still but, for the next 13 years, Stewart led them a merry dance until the SS Walrus ran aground in the Albert River in 1883.
Stewart managed to sell his pot still to a couple of nearby sugar growers who obtained a fresh licence and launched the Beenleigh Distillery. The old copper still was used for another three years or so until a devastating flood swept much of the distillery away and it eventually had to be rebuilt.
Rather than floods, it was two major fires that have hit the Bundaberg Distillery since it was established in 1888 by a group of sugar millers in Bundaberg. Fires destroyed the distillery in 1907 and again in 1936, when rum flowed into the Burnett River and - legend has it - the locals feasted on fish from the river that had been first marinated in rum and then cooked by the rum-fuelled fire. (Interestingly, an article in the Courier-Mail in 1988 featured local fishermen complaining that waste from the Beenleigh Distillery was killing prawns and fish in the Albert River.)
In 1899, when the Boer War broke out, the armed forces bought the entire production of Bundaberg Rum which was sent as rations for Australians troops serving in South Africa. During World War One, with the distillery freshly rebuilt after the 1907 fire, Bundaberg Rum again sustained Australian soldiers serving overseas and the country’s affectionate relationship with “Bundy” was sealed.
While rum and Bundy, in particular, remain popular with Australian drinkers, brandy has largely gone out of fashion in recent decades, though South Australians still consume it in quantities disproportionate to the rest of the country. When the newly-built Chateau Tanunda in the Barossa Valley published a promotional booklet in 1913, they claimed straight-faced, apparently, to be “the most magnificent and pretentious Brandy Distillery and Winery that has yet been erected in the Southern Hemisphere”. The booklet claims that “each season” 500,000 gallons of wine was distilled for brandy and that: “On the unquestioned authority of the Commonwealth Excise department it is stated that the Chateau Tanunda Limited hold nine-sixteenths of the total stocks of Australian brandy”, in other words – more than half.
At the time, brandy was regarded as a quasi medicinal pick-me-up and all Australian brandy-makers produced a labelled “hospital brandy” at relatively low retail cost. In their booklet, Chateau Tanunda proudly claims to have supplied brandy to Adelaide Hospital, Kalgoorlie Hospital, Perth Hospital, The Sydney Hospital, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, as well as Guy’s Hospital in London.
Some local brandy makers sought to produce higher quality brandy, beyond the “hospital” variety and the family-owned Angoves company continues to do so with their St Agnes range (which is the Australian brandy market leader). Angoves maintains a stock of some 5,000 barrels of maturing brandy at Renmark and their St Agnes Very Old Brandy has won many international awards over the years; pot still brandies used in the blend are at least 20 years old (some as old as 50 years), yet at a recommended retail price of $60 it, surely, represents one of the great Australian grog bargains.
20th Century and Beyond
For much of the 20th century production of domestic spirits continued to grow, particularly after the Second World War. In the financial year of 1964/65 federal excise was paid on 1,009,300 proof gallons of Australian brandy, 359,100 proof gallons of domestic whisky, 371,900 proof gallons of locally produced gin, and 111,200 proof gallons of vodka.
By the mid 1960s there were some 25 brands of Australian whisky on the market with Corio the best-known. The Corio Distillery was established in Geelong in 1928 and produced low-cost brands like Corio, Black Opal and Bond 7, aimed at the mixed drink market. It is claimed that the formidable and long-serving Victorian Premier Sir Henry Bolte started each day – while in office – with a glass of Corio whisky and several Turf cigarettes34, a testament to his robust constitution and down-to-earth appetite for all things Australian.
The Corio Distillery was taken over by UK spirit company United Distillers in the late 1970s and closed down, along with its various brands, so as not to compete with their own imported Scotch and Irish whiskies. The era of Australian whisky production had come to an abrupt but, thankfully, temporary end.
Spiritual Revival
In the mid-1980s pioneering whisky producers Bill and Lyn Lark decided there was no reason why high-quality single malt whisky couldn’t be made in Tasmania. Having acquired a tiny, antique still, the Larks then faced their greatest obstacle: changing federal legislation covering distillation. Amazingly, the Commonwealth Distillation Act 1901 permitted only large-scale operations, stipulating a minimum wash still capacity of around 2,700 litres. The Larks approached their local parliamentary member Duncan Kerr who listened sympathetically and immediately rang the federal Minister for Customs Barry Jones. In a matter of weeks the legislative regulations were amended and they were soon granted a general distillers’ licence, the first issued in Tasmania since the 1830s.35
The Lark Distillery currently operates a 1,500-litre still, producing around 10,000 litres of whisky annually, along with a range of spirits and liqueurs, including several flavoured with the Tasmanian pepperberry.
Perhaps inspired by the Larks’enterprise, the Tasmania Distillery was a somewhat audacious operation when it kicked off in 1994, utilising a replica 1860 French “alambic charentas” pot still located in the historic former Hobart gasworks. The business has undergone two changes of ownership in recent years, the distillery equipment is currently in storage and Hobart Single Malt and Old Hobart Cask Strength have been released from older stocks of whisky.
Whisky Tasmania is by the far the most ambitious new whisky venture in the antipodes, with more than 2,500 casks (500,000 litres) currently maturing in their bond stores. The business is a subsidiary of a privately-owned milk company located in Burnie, on the northwest coast of Tasmania. The stainless steel distillery was built locally at a cost of more than A$2 million and produced its first whisky run in January 1999. There are plans to release the first whisky later this year. In its first three years of operation Bakery Hill Distillery produced the equivalent of a mere 5,000 bottles, but the initial whisky released in early 2004 is already attracting widespread praise. Operating from the Melbourne suburb of Bayswater, David Baker is a biochemist who previously worked in the food industry before following his passion into whisky making.
A nearby craft brewery supplies the wash and Baker distils twice in a 1,000-litre pot still he commissioned from UK manufacturer John Dore & Co. He uses a portion of peated malt and the whiskies are matured in 50 and 100-litre casks, which promotes an accelerated ageing process in the smaller casks.
The Bakery Hill range is unfiltered, bottled at 46 % A/V and includes Classic Malt, Double Wood, and Peated Malt. The Bakery Hill Peated Cask Strength was named Best Small Distillery Whisky of the Year in international whisky writer Jim Murray’s 2005 Whisky Bible, showing beyond doubt that there is a future for high quality spirits produced in this country.
Inner Circle Comes Full Circle
But perhaps the best news story involving Australian spirits has been the revival of Inner Circle Rum in recent years. Inner Circle Rum was initially produced by the Colonial Sugar Refinery as an in-house gift for - as the name suggests – the “inner circle” of upper management and favoured clients. The rum won international awards, rapidly gained a cult status and, somewhat belatedly, was released commercially in 1970. But by 1986, tighter waste disposal regulations and rising real estate prices caused CSR to close down their Pyrmont distillery and quit rum production completely.
Sydney businessman Stuart Gilbert had enjoyed Inner Circle Rum as a young man and wondered why it had abruptly disappeared from bottleshop shelves. In 2000 he purchased the Inner Circle trademark, employed the retired distiller Malcolm Campbell and had the rum produced by pot still distillation in Suva, Fiji.
Since being relaunched in 2002 in three different bottling strengths, Inner Circle Rum has won multiple awards including Best Rum (twice) at the International Spirits Competition held in London. Encouraged by commercial and competition success, Gilbert bought the defunct Beenleigh Distillery in early 2004 and recommissioned the entire plant under Campbell’s guidance.
In November 2005, the first run of pot still Inner Circle Rum was produced at what is Australia’s oldest registered distillery and the story of local spirits has completed a neat historical circle. More than anything else, the Inner Circle Rum story shows that there is a place for the highest-quality, premium spirits to be made here in Australia.
The Simpson Willie Paper
in goes your eye out
This is a great link!!
http://www.logan.qld.gov.au/__data/asse ... andrum.pdf
The SS Walrus in all it's glory!
http://www.logan.qld.gov.au/__data/asse ... andrum.pdf
The SS Walrus in all it's glory!
in goes your eye out
Great info. Thanks for posting!
Rum Reviews Rankings and Cheat Sheet
References: MGXO, R Mat. GR, Scar Ibis, Apple 12, Barb 5, Pusser's, Wray and Neph, ED 15, 10Cn, West Plant, R Barc Imp.
References: MGXO, R Mat. GR, Scar Ibis, Apple 12, Barb 5, Pusser's, Wray and Neph, ED 15, 10Cn, West Plant, R Barc Imp.
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Capn Jimbo
- Rum Evangelisti and Compleat Idiot
- Posts: 3550
- Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:53 pm
- Location: Paradise: Fort Lauderdale of course...
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A huge public thanks...
Now these posts are exactly The Rum Project hoped for. It's a sad, sad day when the main threads on a so-called "rum lovers" site are "What I drank last night?" or "What's your lastest purchase?". Seriiously, who gives a fuck? Really. A bunch of sycophantic simian jabber.
The monkeys' limits seem to be a short paragraph of mostly monsyllabic words posted in short, incomplete sentences, often accompanied by exclamation points and drinking emoticons. Caribbean rums' existence threatened? No problem, what did you drink last night? But Mount Gay is at risk? No biggie, but I'm having a problem with a crumbling cork. Rare collectors items like Tres Hombres, or another on of a seemingly unending series of unremarkable releases from slave-inspired "Plantation" island, where each collectible is "finished" in worn sherry barrels for at least 15 minutes. Finished is right.
In comparison, I could not be prouder of those true lovers and protectors of pure Caribbean spirits, and for posts that actually require reading and comprehension skills.
My sincere thanks for the considerable effort required to find and post material which actually serves to educate and inspire! As for the monkeys...
Havabanana!
Now these posts are exactly The Rum Project hoped for. It's a sad, sad day when the main threads on a so-called "rum lovers" site are "What I drank last night?" or "What's your lastest purchase?". Seriiously, who gives a fuck? Really. A bunch of sycophantic simian jabber.
The monkeys' limits seem to be a short paragraph of mostly monsyllabic words posted in short, incomplete sentences, often accompanied by exclamation points and drinking emoticons. Caribbean rums' existence threatened? No problem, what did you drink last night? But Mount Gay is at risk? No biggie, but I'm having a problem with a crumbling cork. Rare collectors items like Tres Hombres, or another on of a seemingly unending series of unremarkable releases from slave-inspired "Plantation" island, where each collectible is "finished" in worn sherry barrels for at least 15 minutes. Finished is right.
In comparison, I could not be prouder of those true lovers and protectors of pure Caribbean spirits, and for posts that actually require reading and comprehension skills.
My sincere thanks for the considerable effort required to find and post material which actually serves to educate and inspire! As for the monkeys...
Havabanana!
