OUR PRODUCTION PHILOSOPHY

Making great whisky and gin is a labour of love learned over decades. Here we share some more information on each of our 3 distilleries. It is impossible to cover all of the details in such a public document, there simply isn’t enough space. We’re always happy to share our thoughts. Of course after over 30 years research, development and learning, and a combined 50+ years of professional experience, some information is proprietary and is part of the magic that creates the many wonderful spirits we make. That information won't appear here. While there is a lot of information we do make available here, our secrets are only revealed to close friends and other distillers in quiet conversations.  

Now in our 20th year of commercial operation, we have 3 distilleries on 3 separate locations, comprising a total of 38 acres. 


We have more than 20 stills in our stable across these locations, including local Australian custom made copper stills, a rescued 1960’s Australian classic giant, an Italian still and one from the USA, and a 1920’s Australian gin still made in Adelaide. 


We also use the latest hi-tech scientific commercial continuous vacuum distillation technology at Giniversity. We hold over 2,000 barrels of whisky in varying sizes in our 2 barrel stores. 


Our oldest whisky in barrel is 16 years old, and was distilled in 2005. It is worth remembering, on a global scale, we are tiny. 


We are a group of dedicated crafts people all working towards the goal of creating the best spirits in the World.


SUSTAINABILITY

We believe industry must lead sustainability. We have a 50 year strategic plan, well beyond the term of many governments. We adopted a ‘goal of zero waste’ and a ‘road to carbon neutral’ policy early. We are well advanced, and are working towards being carbon neutral by 2025.

Measures we have already achieved include 85kw of solar panels generating electrical energy for our internal use and we regularly achieve supply back into the grid. We are not at 100% renewable energy and work continues on this. We are not far from achieving 0% production “waste” from our distilleries. We have already eliminated 95% of production waste from our distilling process. Waste is something that has no other or further use. We have conducted research, over many decades, into all of our production outputs to find alternative potential positive and sustainable uses. We have created relationships and found solutions to wasting the used raw materials.

For example the ‘pot ale’ (the liquid which is made up of water and organic materials, left in a still after distillation) and the cleaning water, are collected by a local business and trucked off site. This liquid is mixed with green waste in windrows to create high grade premium garden mulch.

The spent grains at all of our distilleries are used by local farmers for feeding sheep and cattle, in exchange for bartered goods. We have given away spent grains to farmers within our broader region where poor seasons have been an issue.

In Porongurup, in April 2021 we commissioned a 270 evacuated tube solar water heater for our 2750 brewing water, saving significant energy and largely removing the carbon consumed in brewing this whisky. We are working on a 5 year plan for implementation of oxy-hydrogen generators in Porongurup as a supplement and eventual replacement for carbon based energy. The energy for the oxy-hydrogen generators is supplied by existing on-site solar energy.

Following 5+ years of research around the world, we are currently commissioning a custom made 5-10 tonne rotating drum malting machine for our Porongurup site. This technology is the most water efficient and energy efficient way to malt grain. This should require only 1/5th of the water used in traditional malting facilities. We have repurposed an existing ‘rotating drum fermenter’ from a large winery, and other malting equipment from the malting plant at the now decommissioned Corio Distillery in Geelong, once the largest distillery in the Southern Hemisphere. This re-use and repurposing saves all of the massive energy consumed in making the large scale equipment, which would otherwise add to pollution, if it were made from scratch.

This long term strategic expansion into in-house malting also permits us to continue working with local farmers, and to provide a new local market for them for premium grain. We can then know the exact terroir of the grain in each batch of whisky. We have been sourcing grains direct from the farm gate from local farmers for over 12 years.

We are currently commissioning a 600 litre yeast propagation facility in Porongurup. This allows us to develop our own permanent proprietary yeast strains, and eliminates the need to rely on commercial yeasts. This eliminates supply chain carbon miles on transporting yeast from overseas. We are also working on a project with a Doctor of Yeast at a University to capture and propagate a native West Australian wild yeast, for our own unique proprietary strain.

Carbon miles remain an issue in supply chains. In 2020 we centralised all packaging to our Margaret River facility, which significantly reduces the carbon miles on thousands of kilometres in transport each year to and from the more remote distilleries in Albany and Porongurup.

We identified packaging as a key area where there is waste in the product life-cycle. Since 2018, we have reduced packaging and 95% of what we source is 100% recycled packaging, which we then use in a way that end consumers can easily recycle the packaging again. Staff at our cellar doors collect and recycle bottles used in our retail premises. We do not use single use plastics within our retail environments. We use compostable tasting cups, and utensils and plates when reusable is not feasible, for example at festivals.

We continue to look for other measures to repurpose, use recyclable, and avoid plastic and minimise waste.

PRODUCTION OVERVIEW - GREAT SOUTHERN DISTILLING CO - ALBANY Distillery

Our brewing water is sourced from aquifers deep beneath our Albany distillery and the Torndirrup peninsula. West Australian Malted barley is currently sourced from maltings in Perth. We are currently upgrading to a 16,000 litre rotating drum malting plant in Porongurup. Distilling operations comprise brewing a mash to produce batches of 2,500 litres of wort. The spent grain is used as stock feed by local farmers. The wort is transferred to our ‘under back’ and specifically selected strains of yeast are used to inoculate the wort and create ‘wash’ or ‘distillers’ beer’. The wash is fermented in closed jacketed and unjacketed stainless steel fermenters for between 3 and 7 days, depending on the time of year and other conditions.

After fermentation the wash is about 8% ABV and is transferred to the 1,800 wash still, and is distilled over about 12 hours. The output from this distillation is called ‘low wines’ and is usually around 28% abv. The 1,000 litre copper spirit still is then filled with the low wines, along with the ‘heads and tails’ from the previous spirit run. The spirit still runs over about 12 hours and we split the output into 4 separate parts. The fore shots, the heads, the heart, and the tails. We dispose of the fore shots (we use these for lighting our ethanol fires in winter), as this contains undesirable elements. We collect the heads into the ‘heads and tails’ tank, for use in the next run. We cut to the heart after conducting a misting test, and send this off for barreling. We cut to the tails at 64.5%ABV. We run the tails until 1.8% ABV and then cut the still.

We barrel at 64.5% ABV, and we are conducting long term research at other barreling strengths. We use second fill ex-bourbon barrels from the USA, predominantly from Heaven Hill, Four Roses, Jack Daniels, and Old Forrester. We only import barrels at certain times of year to avoid ‘stink bug’ season, so that the barrels do not need to be fumigated or heat treated. We also source barrels from Australian Coopers and Australian Wineries, including fortified wine (Australian fortified wines formerly known as Port and Sherry, and Pedro Ximenez, Muscat, and other traditional European styles). We hold many barrels that range from 10 to 80 years of use as fortified barrels. We have an in-house cellar in Porongurup of over 300 barrels of fortified Australian wines (ports and sherries). Our collection grows every year, to ensure we have a continued uninterrupted supply of finishing casks. Most of the barrels we use are 200 litre ex-bourbon barrels. We retain 20 or so older 100 litre casks. We also use hogs heads, barriques, and puncheons. Our largest barrels used for aging are 650 litre ex-port puncheons. We are also using new oak for maturation of Tiger Snake mixed grain whisky which then go to on to mature our single malt whiskies. Barrels are stored in our barrel stores in Albany and Porongurup. We have an in-house Scottish cooper who works on reconditioning barrels, including using some proprietary technology to get a second and third life out of barrels, meaning that we should get between 10 and 60 years of use out of a barrel, before selling them onto the craft brewing industry for use in brewing high quality beers. Most of our whiskies are aged between 5 and 10 years. 

Our world recognised Limeburners peated whiskies are made by smoking malted barley with peat hand collected from ancient peat bogs near the famous Valley of the Giants near Walpole. The home to the red-tingle tree, which grow to 400 years old and are one of the largest trees on the planet. This peat produces a unique smoke and flavour different from every other whisky in the World. This unique flavour is a result of the botanical material forming the peat. We use small amounts of peat so as to manage the peat resource sustainably. The malted barley is placed onto 8 x 1.2m2 trays inside our custom built stainless steel peat smoking box. The grains are smoked for up to 3 days, and with peat from different layers of the peat bog, depending on the desired peated style of whisky we wish to achieve. We do not use peat in all of our whiskies, and provide far more unpeated whisky than peated whisky.

PRODUCTION OVERVIEW - GREAT SOUTHERN DISTILLING CO - PORONGURUP Distillery

Porongurup is our largest distillery, with over 3,500 square meters under roof. This is a 30 acre site, and incorporates our mixed grain and rum distillery and where we have our white spirit production capability. We produce Tiger Snake Sour Mash and Dugite blended whiskies from this site. We also produce rye whiskies and other grain whiskies from Porongurup.

Here we use a 12 tonne per hour 4 roller mill to mill malted barley, unmalted barley, wheat, and malted and unmalted rye. As well as combined mash streams, we have used malted and unmalted grains in single distillate streams since 2011. We have an 80 tonne per hour hammer mill that we use to mill our corn. We have a 2,500 litre solar heated evacuated tube water system for brewing water. We mash to a unique house recipe into a 2,500 litre grain cooker, and then after cooking the gain, we drain to a 2,000 litre custom built mash tun. After rests and sparging, we pump the 2,800 litre wort into 3,500 litre open top wooden (European oak) fermenters, and pitch the specifically selected yeasts. We let the natural bio-flora of the native trees and grasses in the acres surrounding our distillery influence the ferment over a 5 day fermentation cycle. This bio-flora influence along with set-back creates our unique ‘sour mash’. We then process the wash in a 750 litre Italian ‘Frilli’ built steam fired copper off-set pot, onion head, and column still. The low wines, and fore’s and faints, are then distilled in our 9 meter tall, 3,500 litre copper pot spirit still, that was originally made in Adelaide, South Australia in the 1950’s or 1960’s, which we rescued from destruction in 2005. The heart ‘spirit’ is then barreled to 64.5% ABV and stored at our dedicated Porongurup barrel store.

We began producing rum in January 2019 (not yet released), using an old French-Caribbean method. We use black strap molasses which we dilute to a proprietary brix level and then cook to 80°C before pumping to a 3,500 litre open top wooden (European Oak) fermenter. We let the rum ferment for 2 weeks to allow for a secondary reintroduced bacterial fermentation and flavour development. This produces a luscious rich and complex flavoured rum. The fermented wash is then distilled in the same method as whisky, but both the wash distillation and the spirit distillation occurs in our 3,500 litre 9 meter tall still. Different cut points are used from our rums and whiskies

Porongurups also includes a 750 litre 18 plate, 2 column pot still from the USA, which produces 21 phase changes (distillations), in the one run. This allows us to make neutral spirit, as well as processing whisky and rum wash. We source wine and grape material from wineries in the Great Southern and Margaret River regions for distillation into neutral spirit and the occasional barrel of brandy. In 2020 we received more than 100,000 litres of wine for distillation.

We have a small orchard on site, and have planted 200 Juniper trees to help supplement our future supply of juniper berries. All trees were germinated from seed on site. We also feed our cellar door food waste and some of our spent grain to our small flock of Isa-Brown chickens, which in turn provide eggs for our Albany cellar door for cooking and cocktails. We are currently establishing bee hives at Porongurup to provide honey in-house for Limeburners honey whisky liqueur.

PRODUCTION OVERVIEW - MARGARET RIVER DISTILLING CO

At this distillery we focus on making the very finest gins from the very finest botanicals. We have a particular focus on using native botanicals in every Gin we make. We produce both ‘single shot’ and ‘compound’ gins. Most of our botanicals and gins are distilled via our rotating evaporator vacuum continuous still. This is the only still that we have ever named - aptly “Mr White”, as it would equally be at home in a large pharmaceutical company or a leading perfume house, as a craft Gin distillery. This still is small in size, being only 0.05% of the size of our largest still, but it is large on output capacity and finesse. This still permits us to continuously distill botanicals under vacuum at 36°C, which means that we do not need to cook the botanicals and we get to extract the very best flavours and essential oils. We understand we are operating the largest rotating evaporator still at any gin distillery in Australia.

We also use up to 12 small 2 litre stills for bespoke distillation, trials and specific botanical extraction, as well as for distillation classes. We also have a 500 litre 12 column fractionating still with a ‘carters head’ or botanical basket that allows us to produce gin or essential oils. This still is very much in the background to the heavy lifting done by Mr White. After the gin is made, it is diluted to bottling strength with reverse osmosis water from Margaret River’s supply and is left to marry prior to bottling. Bottling, labelling and dispatch for all 3 distilleries also occurs in Margaret River.

Margaret River Distilling Co also has 2 small orchards on site, which we utilise in the distilling process and in the cellar door.

STABLE OF STILLS

  • 3,500 litre copper pot still - made in Adelaide, refurbished in Albany, Australia
  • 1,800 litre copper wash still - made Tasmania, Australia
  • 1,000 litre copper spirit still - made in Albany Australia
  • 800 litre copper batch column pot still - Made by Frilli, Italy.
  • 750 litre copper batch column pot still - made by ADE, USA
  • 500 litre stainless batch column pot still
  • 20 litre glass rotating evaporator vacuum continuous still
  • 50 litre stainless pot still
  • 8 x 2 litre glass ‘excise condenser’ botanical extraction pot stills.
  • 6 x 2 litre copper botanical extraction pot stills.
  •  800 litre 1920’s Australian Gin Still - retired, on display
  • 500 litre Limeburners Spirit Still (2004 - 2020) - retired