Copper Giraffes & Naked Twister - Touring Old Hobart Distillery

Casey & Jane Overeem

On my recent Tasmanian Whisky Extravaganza I made it out to the Old Hobart Distillery, aka the Overeem family shed. And what a nice shed it was too. Unbeknown to me at the time it was to be one of the very last public tours Old Hobart Ditillery was to be running at its current standing facilities. In the coming week following my visit the stills were to be broken down and moved to their new home over at Lark Distillery's Mt Pleasant site. I am so glad I got to meet the original makers of Overeem Whisky while catching a glimpse room this famous whisky was born out.

Waking early from a previous evenings impromptu cider tasting, I hopped a bus to shoot out to the Old Hobart Distillery in Blackmans Bay from Hobart with an approximation of where to be. Old Hobart Distillery was not on the map, it made sense, it literally was a purpose built distillation shed on the Overeem family property. Really who wants crazy whisky aficionados rocking up for a tour and a cup of coffee at the family diner table? Calling Jane Overeem (head of Marketing & Distribution, sometimes distiller, and always daughter to Casey Overeem) I noted exactly where I was on the map right down to the house number. Curiously only moments before this call I swear I could hear Janes voice in close proximity. "Keep going up the road to number X, we have a long driveway. It was to be a classic case of accidental misdirection (or was it). I kept walking up the hill, I kept walking along the road, I walked until the houses stopped and the paddocks began. When horses started appearing out of the scrub I thought it was time to call Jane just to make sure where I was. "I think I sent you the wrong way, I'll send mum up to get you "Janes says. "...he's just laughing" was one of the last comments from Jane to an obvious listening audience before the sound of the phone clicked. So that is how my tour at Old Hobart Distillery began: local fauna and flora; horse paddocks; and a ride in the family car. "She's so blonde sometimes" quoted Jane's mother as we trundeled back down the road an up the drive way I was literally standing in front of when I made the initial call. Thanks Jane your the best! I needed a work out. Really it could not have been a better start for the day as the ice was broken and morning atmosphere was relaxed while chatting over coffee at the Overeem kitchen table. Other guests had arrived by the time I made my appearance, all of whom I would later see that night at the Overeem Malt Vault event.

As mentioned, what was the Old Hobart Distillery, was in fact Casey's shed on the family property. Purpose built for the task it was painted typical Australian generic garden green with 2 large burgundy doors, with a foot print at a maximum size of 35sqm that was legal for a hobby distiller. As small as the space was in turn this dictated the size and height of the stills to be installed which ultimately has influenced the flavours we so admired from an Overeem whisky.

Upclose with the copper giraffes

Walking into the distillery was like discovering 2 giraffes in an awkward moment of naked twister. Standing silent with necks craning to the roof, the wash and spirt stills were intertwined to make the most of the small space. Around the room were all Casey's tools of the trade creating an extremely lived in ambience. I found it to be a pretty typical view of Australian's current golden golden era in whisky distilling. Something to be cherished. Casey and Jane were clearly proud of their space making us all feel like part of the family. With space at a premium the chairs that could be found offered some seating, where benches cleared some leant or like me stood amounst the dwarf copper wildlife. Cosily crammed in Casey and Jane then took us through a run down of the ins and out of Old Hobart Distilley.

As the tour progressed, we turned our heads left, we turned our heads right (because if you swung a cat you would probably break something), drams from various Overeen expressions were offered for tasting including some exciting new make spirit. Casey was all to open to discuss any questions posed and we found our discussions diverging into all manner of discussion about whisky production. Probably one of the more interesting items of discussion related to how Casey mentioned he add a lot of water to the spirit run to slow down the distillation process noting that this was one of the characteristics that improves the spirit. At this point of the tour now knowing the distillery was moving I asked about water source. Casey simply pointed to the filters on the wall noting that it did not mater too much about the source on this site as their water was getting filtered prior to the distillation run. Also you should note Lark Distillery has always done the mashing of the malted barley for Old Hobart Distillery. This basically means there is no change to the malting and mashing for Overeem Whisky even with the site merger. Good news indeed.

The ins and outs of Old Hobart distillery

In the corner of the room was a steal drum containing the fores and faints of the distillation process. This is cuts before and after the pure spirit has completed distillation. It is an important part of the distillation process as this is the stuff that makes you go blind, poisons the blood stream, causes comas, and ultimately death if you drink it in any considerable enough quantities. It needs to be cut out of the process. The contents of the barrel was green from the copper stills and smelt somewhat harsh and astringent. Casey asked if anyone wanted to taste it. "I will" was my reply with just a finger dip at that. I still recall a bit of a look of horror on Jane's face as she questioned Casey about should we really be doing this. I can confirm it was pretty nasty stuff with a nose and taste of heavy copper, apples, and barley. Rub an old penny or 2 cent coin on your fingers then lick your fingers as they is pretty much what it tasted like. I won't be doing that again any time soon as it left the mouth instantly dry and metalic. I had always thought these cuts were simply dumped but amazingly it goes back into the still on the next run and will continue to be recycled several times until it gets a bit too nasty.

Proud parent Casey Overeem and going into details about his product  

In finishing up a few photos were posed for before Jane had said this was the last official tour. Was there a tear in the eye and sob in the voice? I think there was. Casey seemed nonchalant to the moment which to me simply says they have achieved what they set out to do and proud of the fact. I am so glad to have been there for this tour as I really do believe that these kinds of 'hobby' distilleries (as Casey called it) are going to be a thing of the past very soon for Australia. Money, tourism and investment are key words when talking about the growing whisky industry Australia wide. As the newer distilleries come online it is clear they are being built for the tourism factor as much as to make whisky. The same thing happened with the Australian wine industry back in the 80's as interest grew in discoveringand visiting the source of what was in the bottle. It is a natural progression for whisky to do the same thing. Still these are the places were legends are born and dreams come true. Old Hobart Distillery is proof that great things really do come from small things.

It was not the last I would see of the Overeem's that day, the Malt Vault Bourbon in the Bond Store event was only hours away, but let us leave that post for another day.

Thanks so much to Casey and Jane for the time. It was a swell time.

The Baron

Distill Your Feelings - Jack Daniel's & Fathers Day 2014

Father's Day 2014 is fast approaching. In Australia we see it celebrated on the 1st weekend of September each year making the 2014 festivities on the 7th September. For me whisky is always on the list and I guess if your reading this and a father then your probably the same.

These days it is becoming more common for distilleries to be offering personalised engraving services as a way of enhancing a gift. Jack Daniel's has now opened it's internet doors for engraving this year on bottles of Gentleman Jack. With 3 lines of 18 characters each I am sure a you can figure out something to say like "Remember who gave you this", "Sharing is caring", "At this line, tides out, call for a lifeline" and or "Don't open this without me".

Ordering will be found on the official Gentleman Jack Australia Promo website www.jackspromo.com.au or on the official Gentleman Jack facebook page. Get in quick as the first 500 bottles ordered online get free shipping also.

The Baron

Information quoted in this post has been provided to us as an official media release by Gentleman Jack.

Glenfiddich's 2014 Fathers Day Competition

Glenfiddich have a Fathers Day comp for Australia! It is not often we see exclusive competitions in Australia for whisky so when there is one you need to know about it.

The rules are basic and simple to follow. Use the link below to get started. If your not a Glenfiddich Explorer (on the email list ensure you check the box), in 25 words or less explain what knowledge you would like your dad to share (presumably at the exclusive whisky tasting), and fill in your contact details.

The official line for the promotion is as follows form the Glenfiddich site:

Join us today and tell us what knowledge and skills you would like to learn from your father for your chance to earn tickets for you both to an exclusive Glenfiddich Whisky Masterclass. There will be 50 winners in each state. After all, knowledge passed down through your family deserves a whisky passed down through ours.

Enter the Glenfiddich competition here

Good luck!

The Baron

This is a non-sponsord promotion. For any further details please defer to the Glenfiddich website.

Whisky Touring Tasmania - Where To Stay in Hobart

Montacute Boutique Bunkhouse. You look forward to seeing this sign everyday.

Warning: You will be wanting to stay at the Montacute Boutique Bunkhouse by the time you finish reading this.

It is a hard choice traveling to a new city or country and not knowing where to stay. Ensuring access to food, transport, facilities, and local culture is imperative. Sure budget can be a big thing but who wants to stay in stale, sterile, unsparing hotel room that delivers nothing but 4 walls and a bed with a hefty price tag with an attached restaurant you would not even take your mother-in-law to. So you want quality, class and style? You need inspiration? You insist on location location location? You want access to bars, pubs, restaurants that serve 1kg steaks, gourmet delis, weekend markets where whisky distilleries even have stalls, night life, and some of the beast coffee and breakfasts Hobart has to offer all within a stones throw? You like the authentic heritage old town feel in every glance? Off street parking, that is if you actually just don't walk everywhere which you can? Want a social environment to retreat too after a hard days touring and tasting? Expect the owners/managers to be friendly, open, and share a cider or four or just happy to hang and chat at every moment? Enter the Montacute Boutique Bunkhouse. Located in the heart of old town Battery Point just off Salamanca Place, everything you need for a short or long stay is delivered with little more you can ask for. For me I needed a place I could stage my whisky tours from over the 4 days in Hobart and seriously there could not have been a better choice!

Some of the rooms in Montacute

Montacute Boutique Bunkhouse, as the name suggests, is a bunkhouse with shared rooms and facilities.  No more than 4 persons per room, priced at the time $40 a night per person, you will find custom made king size single double bunks that have a comfort factor you wish you had at home. No single rooms are available but there are some doubles with queen sized beds for couples priced at $100 a night for the room. Everything is provided for including heaters, linen, pillows, reading lamps, ample power points, towels, and privacy screens. Let's not forget wifi throughout of course. Chillaxing rooms are found all over Montacute with very very very comfy chairs, as well as a large dining area, and an extra large kitchen with fridges plus storage cupboards if you want to cook or grab takeaway instead of eating out. Hopefully by now you will realise this IS NOT a hostel/back packers, so don't write it off because you need to share. Contrary to what you may initially assume luxury is the key word at every step.

It tasted as good as it looks.

Montacute Boutique Bunkhouse is perfect for the single gourmet traveller but if you travel in couples or plan to do a group tour of Tasmania, especially if your planning a whisky tour, then this is the place to stay. Owners Antony and Rose have a background in food, beverage, and marketing with a keen interest in the sailors old devil Gin. Of course don't that stop at talking Gin to impress your new found family away form home. I am sure you will be discovering (as I did) an urge haul back to the bunkhouse bottles of cider, beer, wine, cheese, cold cuts, curries, bread, spreads, sausages and even oysters (yep I ate those before I got back) as this bubbly couple will be all to happy to assist in it's partaking while shooting the breeze all afternoon long. Take this time to grab any advice you need on where to eat and drink as Rose and Antony have the all digs on what's what in the neighbourhood.

Just some of the action in a moments walk from Montacute.

I chose Montecute based on price and locality to access the Lark Cellar Door as that was where my whisky travels with Tasmanian Whisky Tours would begin. I was completely unaware of what else was around Montacute but I knew I did not want to stay in a shady hotel room with no social aspect. I firmly believe there would be very few other locations in Hobart that could provide what you can get from Montacute Boutique Bunkhouse for the dollars spent.

Now I am not saying that you should stay here but if you don't then expect a knuckle sandwich when you least expect it from me if you pass up the opportunity. If I was to give a dram then it is a clear 7 out of 7. I could go on about how great an experience I had here but really you just have to try it for yourself. I loved it so much I booked aroma for next years 2015 whisky trip. Get on it now!

The Baron

Knockin on heavens door - On Tour with Tasmanian Whisky Tours

A rock star moment on the Tasmanian Whisky Tours. All we needed was some groupies.

Want to go touring Australian Whisky distilleries in Tasmania but don't know where to start? Regardless if you an Australian resident or overseas tourist Tasmanian Whisky Tours is a solution to the problem.

These days it is pretty much impossible to not think of whisky when someone speaks of Tasmania. Over the years we have all, at one time I am sure, considered hitting up the distilleries. Where to start though? Drive to Melbourne then hope a boat to Tassie? Fly in to Hobart, rent a car then drive around? Who is the designated drive, you? NO way we are here to taste whisky not sniff it! Then there is what to expect when you get to a distillery? Can you even get your foot in the door? All this is a bit of minefield with disasters or disappointments bound to happen. Without a hell of a lot of forward planning your going to find it a waste of time. Remember most of these Tassie distilleries are not much bigger than a large back yard sheds with very few even prepared for guests to just rock up. Visitors centres are more or less non-existant These are all the problems I had to sort through over the years and is what has held me back... until now. Enter The Tasmanian Whisky Tours (TWT). On a whim I got the bug to just go recently, and thanks to TWT I could literally just do it. True to the word I booked a room, booked a flight, book some tours all within 15 min. 2 weeks later I was off for rock star treatment whisky distillery touring.

Kicking off with a breakfast dram at the Lark Cellar Door.

Before going further it is worth noting there is an initiative by Discover Tasmania called The Tasmanian Whisky Trail. A trail it is not and the naming of the site is going to add further confusion. A great site and if your looking to do more than a few days in Tasmania and or wanting to get a good overview of the island state then both (especially over seas travellers) then the Discover Tasmania & The Tasmanian Whisky Trail sites are worth a look in. Be aware there is NO 'trail' so to speak of unlike what you will find in the US such as The Kentucky Bourbon Trail program.

TWT is the brain child of Brett Steel tour operator. Barely running 6 months when I took the tours Brett has a plan to get you around to as many distilleries in a day as is possible while considering the distance that must be travelled and fitting in a gourmet lunch. There is nothing else like this in Tasmania at this time but that is not a bad thing. Brett does it right and there is little else you can ask for that is not all ready factored in. Possibly a whisky bar in the back of a stretched Hummer is the next step?

Tearing it up through the highlands the scenery just got better and better.

TWT focuses much more on a general view of Tasmanian distillery history with tours accessing behind the scenes action where possible while giving a pretty good geographic talk through the whole trip. With groups of anything from 3 to 12 individuals the tours are lively, comfortable, and just plain good fun. Brett's relationship with the distilleries is clearly close with the Tasmanian distilleries very open and willing to accept TWT as one of their own. Brett's knowledge is not just of whisky and the educational aspects of local culture and environment are there every step of the way.

1st leg of the tour The Nant distillery. 

Noting all the work Brett puts in, TWT still is at the mercy of the distilleries. If they choose not to open then that is what happens but Brett's communication with the distilleries is solid so Brett will always do what he can to fit something else in instead. As an example, to pack in as much as I could on my trip, I had booked 2 days of tours to get to as many distilleries as possible. When Overeem needed to close it's doors for another event on the Friday I was booked in for, Brett gave me a call discussed my options and still hooked me up for a half day Lark Distillery tour guided with the always jovial Mark Nicolson and his Drambulance. The half day Lark Distillery tour was just fantastic and so glad he could get this fixed for me but lets leave that post for another day.

New distilleries are coming online in Tasmania soon while others like Overeem and Lark have merged, this will mean what you maybe reading here now for distillery access will change soon. Currently TWT gains you behind the scenes access to: Lark Cellar Door; Lark Distillery; Redlands Estate; Old Hobart Distillery / Overeem; Belgrove Distillery; Nant Distillery; Tasmanian Distillery / Sullivans Cove; William McHenry and Sons Distillery; Shene Estate. TWT tours groups / public tours cost $185.00AU and currently run on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Private 2 person tours cost $495.00 in total that run almost any day of the week on booking request.

Lunch at Redlands Estate before starting the 2nd leg of the distillery tours.

For my Sunday tour we set out at a sparrows fart with a breakfast dram at Lark Cellar door doing a meet and greet with other fellow tourers. There was 6 of us all up + Brett. Climbing into the bus we set off for a first stop at the Nant Distillery doing a full tour of the facilities and grounds before a sampling of various Nant whiskies. Following was a drive up into the Tasmanian highlands for a gourmet lunch in front of open fireplace on the Redlands distillery site coupled with a complete tour of Redlands Estate distillery chatting and sampling with head distiller Dean Jackson. Following we headed off for an all access pass to Belgrove distillery to have an intimate tastings and unique barrel samplings with Peter Bignall, the Australia's Renaissance Distiller. Break downs on each tour in following posts.

The 3rd leg and last distillery on the days tours was Belgrove Distillery.

My recommendation is to use Hobart as your beachhead to stage gourmet assaults on the country side. Schedule 2 days of tours so you can access as many distilleries as possible. If your not completely keen on visiting some of the same distilleries twice then organise a half or full day tour with Lark Distillery on the alternate day so you can really dig into the grain to barrel experience. Also keep in mind Tasmania is cider country and a gourmet travellers delight so be sure to make time in-between tours to get some of the local food, wine, beer and cider action. You won't be lost for activities in Hobart either and if you need a whisky fix daily the Lark cellar door has a range of whiskies that beat most Sydney whisky bars while the Nant Bar is also only a extra long stones through away.

A cold brew back at the Lark Cellar Door before rounding off the days activities.

In perspective what did this trip cost me? All up I managed to get 4 nights accommodation at The Montacute Boutique Bunkhouse (cannot recommend these guys enough) right in the heart of the Hobart action and within walking distance of the Lark Cellar Door (review to come), flights return to Sydney on Jetstar, and 2 days of tours for the bargain price of $650 AU (food not included). That rocks! I have been so impressed with what I have gotten out of these toursplus what can be achieved in Hobart in so few days I have already booked by accommodation for next year 2015. Oh yes I will be back and I will be knocking on Tasmanian Whisky Tours door again for sure. Or should I say knock knock knockin on heavens door.

If I was to give a dram then it would be a solid 7 our of 7. Tasmanian whisky tours does it all so sit back and enjoy the ride as Brett will fix you access most won't get. If Brett is not running Cider, Cheese, and Oyster tours by the time I get there next year there is going to be words had. Please sir can I have some more…?

The Baron

New Release - Highland Park Dark Origins

Official press shot from Highland Park facebook site

Highland Park's latest release may actually be something worth tucking into for a change. We have not seen a great deal of success with all the limited releases from HP over the years and the pricing that followed has delivered questionable value. That said there is no doubting the standard releases from Highland Park are just fantastic that set a benchmark for anything else there release to be gauged by.

Now we see Highland Park Dark Origins. A NAS (No Age Statement) using twice as much first fill sherry casks as the Highland Park 12yo. With no caramel colouring or chill filtering, it retains natural colour and bottled at 46.8% abv.

Setting the pricing scale at £64.95 / $118.06AU we need to consider the taxes it may incur on importing so add another $20AU to the price just to be sure.

Official tasting notes from Highland Park are:

Colour: Rich mahogany

Nose: Sherried spice and ripe bananas combine with toasted hazelnuts and baked apple

Palate: Well-balanced, dry peat at first mellowing out to maraschino cherries, warm dark chocolate entices the palate

Finish: Enduring sweet smoke

Yet to be released in Australia we would hope to see it in a couple of months based on what Highland Park has said on Facebook.

I personally am getting over sherry and have for a while, but if the 12yo is anything to go by the sherry influence is going to be more minimal than some of those saturated releases by other distillers. Looking forward to trying this and soon.

The Baron

This is a non-sponsord promotion. For any further details please defer to the Highland Park website.