Here are 7 of Australia’s most promising distilleries, most often told by their founders.
Beenleigh, the benchmark
The Beenleigh distillery is located south of Brisbane, on Australia’s east coast. It began producing rum in 1884. 100% of the molasses it uses comes from Australia. Native yeasts are used for fermentation. In summer, fermentation can take place very quickly, in 28 or 30 hours.
In the cooler months, from autumn to spring, the fermentation process can take 4 or 5 days. The distillation process is quite unique, as Beenleigh uses both a column and a pot still.
The molasses wine with an alcohol content of 8%, known as ‘wash’, is passed through a column and distilled to 60%, then passed into a copper pot still (which can hold 15,000 litres) and, finally, the rum is distilled to 88% vol. The first two years of ageing take place in large wooden vats (Vats), some of which date back to the 1880s, before maturing in smaller ex-bourbon casks, which bring out more colour and aroma.
Barrels that have previously held Australian port, wines, brandies, etc. are also used. The distillery’s bottlings can be found on the French market. Beenleigh. Among them, we recommend the 5-year-old Double Cask, aged in ex-brandy casks.
Or the 10 Year Old, matured in old bourbon casks. With its great complexity, long finish and roundness, it is truly delicious. But Beenleigh also delights independent bottlers, including Planteray, Famille Ricci, Swell de Spirits, Velier, Rom Deluxe, 1802… All of them offer very different profiles, full-bodied and/or funky, from the official bottlings.
Read also :
Beenleigh, another idea of Australian rum
Beenleigh: meet Steven Magarry, the brand’s group distiller
Cuvée to taste: Carnival Single Cask Australia 2006
The trio of Joey Starr, Ludo Kpodar and Guillaume Château have delighted us with this limited edition of their new brand Carnival Sun Juice. It’s a 2006 vintage from an Australian distillery whose name starts with a B and ends with an H. Much less sophisticated than the official bottlings, it’s an explosion of citrus fruits, with notes of spices (cinnamon, vanilla), chocolate… In short, it’s rich and complex, and lingers for a long time on the palate.
50 cl – 52.1% – €145
Husk distillers, the pioneers of pure cane juice
Located in northern New South Wales, this distillery founded in 2012 by Paul Messenger was the first to launch into pure cane juice rums back in 2015. of a single 6,000-litre copper still to produce the majority of our rums.
These rums come out of the column at around 77% ABV. This is one of the few Australian distilleries whose vintages are available in France. Although they share characteristics with the agricultural rums made in the French West Indies, our rums are typically Australian and reflect where we come from,” explains Paul Messenger. Our unaged white rums are light with fresh notes of sugar cane, pastry notes, delicate flowers and honeyed fruit, briny with a subtle finish of liquorice and pepper. Our aged rums made from 100% cane juice are woody and complemented by fruity notes, cooked spices and a lingering finish of leather and tobacco leaves.”
The vintages :
Husk – Pure Cane is a Single Estate rum made from 100% pure cane juice using a hybrid pot/column still. The flavours are fresh cane, white flowers and liquorice. A real change from the agricultural rums of the West Indies, it’s a great success and a pleasure to try in a ti punch.
70 cl – 50% – around €45
Husk Rare Blend: this is a particularly original rum, a blend of cane honey brandy (80%) and pure cane juice (20%), aged in casks that have previously contained an Australian wine from Penfold. Round and smooth, with aromas of caramel, vanilla and ripe fruit. We’d like a little more punch.
70 cl – 40% – around €50
Read the full interview with Husk founder Paul Messenger
Killik Handcrafted Rum, the strong ester rum
Founded 15 years ago by two brothers, Benjamin and Callan Pratt, this small distillery located in Melbourne (capital of the state of Victoria in the south-east of the country) offers long-fermented rums distilled in a homemade hybrid still and heavily esterified. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t say much more about the fermentation process, but I can tell you that there are two fermentation cycles and that the wine goes through a column still and an iron still to add complexity,’ explains Sam Jones, Killik’s sales manager.
The wine to taste: SBS Origin Australia KLK
Kilik’s products are not yet widely available in Europe, so it’s hard to get an idea of the overall quality, but independent bottler 1423 SBS has launched a very promising vintage: SBS Origin Australia KLK, white rum. We tasted it at the 1802 bar with Donovan Chouari. He really enjoyed its candy-tagada strawberry flavour, we didn’t so much. But in any case, it’s interesting and a little reminiscent of Savanna’s work with its high ester Herr.
70 cl – 57 % – €59
Read the full interview with Sam Jones
Winding Road Distilling Co rides the wave of pure cane juice
Winding Road Distilling Co. is a small, family-run distillery in Tintenbar, New South Wales, founded by Mark Awad in 2018. “Most of our rum is produced from freshly squeezed cane juice (we are in a sugar cane growing region).
Although our production methods are somewhat similar to an agricultural rum, they are different. We focus on creating a distinct Australian expression and achieve this through a long fermentation followed by a rest period and the use of a 1,250-litre ironing still, among other differences.” They are currently looking for distributors in France, so fans beware!
Read the full interview with Mark Awad
Burdekin Distillery, from water… to pure cane juice rum
The distillery is located near Bowling Green National Park in North Queensland, in the heart of the Burdekin, Australia’s premier sugar cane growing region. Tim Lamb and his family own a farm of around forty hectares and have switched from a business centred on mineral water to the production of pure Australian cane juice rum. ‘We reduce all our spirits with our own mineral water,’ says founder Tim Lamb. “In terms of distillation equipment, we now have a new 4,000 litre pot/column Frilli hybrid still.
Read the full interview with Tim Lamb
JimmyRum: molasses rum and soon pure cane juice rum
JimmyRum is a distillery founded just over 5 years ago by James McPherson, on the Mornington Peninsula, 1 hour south-east of Melbourne, less than 5 km from the beach. It produces a wide range of molasses rums (including those with a high ester content), and has plans to move into pure cane juice. We source molasses from a 100% Australian sugar refinery in northern New South Wales (about 1700km north of JimmyRum),‘ explains James McPherson, ’Fermentation lasts an average of 5-6 days under temperature control at 18-19°C. Our “Dirty” products use a 1/3 dunder back set in the fermentation, a special yeast and pot/thumper distillation only (3 x striping and 1 x spirit run). We use an Italian ‘Barison Industries’ hybrid still called Matilda. A distillation sequence lasts an average of 8 to 11 hours and the rum comes out at around 92% (depending on the product)”.
Read the full interview with James McPherson
Capricorn Distillery, molasses or pure juice, why choose?
Capricorn Distilling was established in 2016 in Rockhampton, located in central Queensland, which is the hometown of the family of Warren Brewer its founder. In early 2021, it moved the distillery to the Gold Coast, mainly to be closer to the sugar mills, allowing it to start producing cane juice rum.
We produce both molasses and cane juice rums, experimenting with a wide range of ester profiles,” explains founder Warren Brewer. We operate two stills: a 4,000-litre double autoclave still with a tube-in-tube condenser and a 1,000-litre double autoclave still with a screw-in-tank condenser. Each creates distinct flavour profiles.” Its limited edition “Dumpster Diver”, a molasses-based rum with dunder added during fermentation, naturally fermented (with no commercial yeast added) over a period of 30 days, to which cane juice acid is then added for a further 2 weeks, looks particularly promising.