Furneaux Distillery is celebrating 5 years since their first release of Flinders Island Maritime Whisky.
Read the story of how it all began below:
From the first whispers during bushfire season - "there's peat on the east coast", the lightbulb moment that started it all.
After learning about the fact that Flinders Island was covered in peat bogs, our founders Damien and Howard made a voyage to the other side of the world to learn about life in the Flinders Island of the northern hemisphere - Islay. They cut peat, sampled barrels at Laphroaig, learned about growing and malting at Kilchoman, all the while brewing their own idea of a southern take on peated whisky, a distillery inspired by the ancient Hebridean producers using Flinders Island coastal peat and our own maritime climate.
A LITTLE ROOM WAS BUILT ON THE ISLAND...
Jo Youl, a friend of Damien and Howard's was about to start working on a new restaurant and visitor centre on the island. They had an idea, build a little room on the side of your restaurant, and we can put a distillery there! That was the first home of Furneaux Distillery, at The Flinders Wharf in the main town of Whitemark. Damien set to work with Peter Bailey in Tasmania building our copper-pot stills. A 1600L wash still and 700L spirit still, built in a "lantern glass" shape reminiscent of the stills that had produced so many amazing peaty drams in Islay.
The bare bones! A brand new distillery ready to be commissioned. Beautiful copper-pot stills looking out over Bass Strait, only 20m to the ocean. On the other side of that wall, 26HL of rain water storage for running our condensers and diluting our spirit.
At this point, wash is being brewed in Launceston by Chris Condon, allowing us to operate in such a small space. We could not have done any of this without the help, patience and guidance from Chris Condon & Byrne.
A CHANCE MEETING...
With room built and stills being positioned, Furneaux was ready to launch production on Flinders Island. It was at that point that Tom Ambroz visited Flinders Island, following his partner Nicole who was helping run the second annual Crayfish Festival. Tom had been in the spirits industry for over 10 years, and was working at Sullivan's Cove Distillery as the front of house manager. On his first evening on the island, taking in the beauty of Mount Killicrankie at dusk, he met Damien and Howard on the beach with a mutual friend. Tom had brought a bottle of Sullivans Cove whisky with him, and over a dram, they hatched a plan.
6 months later, Tom and Nicole had moved to Flinders Island and Tom was commissioning the stills for the first time! Which brings us to this propitious anniversary. On the 13th of December 2019, Furneaux Distillery released the first ever bottling of single malt whisky, batch #001-002, an unpeated French Oak ex Sherry cask. Distilled by Damien at Launceston Distillery, where a handful of 20l barrels were "gypsy distilled". The barrels were tucked into the back of a ute and sent across on the freight barge where they continued maturation and were finished by Tom on the island.
THE FIRST RELEASE...
5 years on now, and a LOT has changed. We updated our bottles to 700ml, found the core range of spirits we wanted to produce, and have been growing ever since. We filled that small room with barrels in the first year, so had to build a bond store. The best place we could find was tucked away on a corner of the Furneaux Farm, 15mins up the road at Sawyers Bay. We built a dunnage warehouse, half open earth for the barrels to sit on, keeping the humidity high and the temperature level, allowing that room to breathe just like the barrels. We then filled THAT shed up, and had to build another to keep our bottles, boxes and bits in.
The dream kept growing, and facing up against some extreme constraints we have made some bold decisions. Freight is a huge factor for us, being on a remote island, we rely on a weekly barge of goods from mainland Tasmania. But it's not called the Roaring 40's for nothing, and we are smack bang in the middle of it. We would often find that our grain, barrels or wash would be held up in Bridport for weather, or worse, the boat got stuck on a sandbar and we wouldn't get our supplies for a whole extra week! Add to that the cost of the logistics, we had to get thinking.
There's another element of island life that permeates and guides our decisions, which is the inherent self-sufficiency that comes with living in such a remote part of the world. In a place where you can't just nip to Bunnings, generations here have grown up with a rugged, can-do attitude that you learn quickly. We thought about how amazing it would be to create our product from start to finish, all on our farm at Sawyers Bay.
WE BEGAN FARMING!...
This was a dream come true, a pilot crop of Planet barley seeded in 2023 which turned into a bumper, it clearly loved the sea air and a good spring rainfall. We got the community together, bought a couple of scythes and attempted to harvest by hand. After having only collected 50kg in a day with 25 people working (we need 500kg for one brew by the way...) we went home dusty, sore and deafeated, albeit happy from a fun day stooking and threshing. With a newfound respect for the farmers of yore, we went on a search for some more modern technology and found our trusty 1975 Claas Consul header. The next day we took off with steam (and diesel power), getting 10 tonnes of our own island-grown grain safely cut and bagged. We proudly started brewing and distilling with our own farmed barley in November this year, and are about to harvest our second crop this summer.
BUT THERE WAS STILL ROOM FOR MORE SHEDS...
Time for the big one. We started works on our dream shed in 2022, a place where we could brew, distill and bottle all in once place. A new home for Furneaux Distillery where we can host visitors at our very own tasting room, tour around the farm and share our dream of paddock-to-bottle maritime peated whisky, at one of the most incredible locations in the world.
We can't wait to show you more of this beautiful building and the amazing experiences you'll be able to have here. So a lot has happened in 5 years. We survived a global pandemic (albeit in one of the safest places possible, we had a moat!), we've gone from one employee to 5, and built a world-class production and tasting facility on the Furneaux Farm. We couldn't be more excited with the future as we share the love of maritime peated whisky around Australia and the world. Thank you all for supporting us along this journey, please continue to keep in touch, and if you get the chance, visit us on Flinders Island some time.
Australia’s home of global-award-winning spirits.
Prepare to be enchanted by the Tasmanian Whisky and Spirits Trails, a passage into the realm of liquid spirits. Journey through stunning landscapes, meet passionate artisans and sample the best of Tasmania’s whisky, gin and spirits.
Access the trails connecting the many cellar doors scattered throughout the island. Their tasting rooms and restaurants are turning these distilleries into destinations on their own, with plenty to see and do in between.
Choose your own itinerary, visit your favourite distilleries, meet the makers and discover the true spirit of the Island.