“A very exciting time for Furneaux Distillery, the first ever whisky release! I can only imagine Damien back in the early days of the Furneaux concept, having gotten to the stage of spirit production filling our first ever casks. The idea of a maritime peated whisky was firmly in mind as our direction, but those first few batches of peated malt were still ticking along, so our first casks were French Oak ex Apera, filled with unpeated new make. Sure elements to make a delicious Tasmanian single malt.

New on the island having just moved over that week, I was very eager to get decanting. Lucky for me there were some casks that had been down since April 2017, so I didn’t have to wait long. They were painfully small batches at only 2 x 20l casks each, but enough to start working on our inaugural releases.

I had found that in tasting many 20l casks in the past, that they were extremely full of flavour having such a high timber to spirit ratio, but not always the best balanced straight out of the cask. Not to worry though, a bit of treatment is all they need. During the slow dilution process, I let these casks air out over a couple of weeks in a stainless vat with a mesh top. This allows a lot of the more volatile elements in the spirit evaporate, softening up the profile while the two casks marry together and join the water added to reach their final dilution at 45%.

The thing I love about an unpeated Tasmanian single malt is that it really lets the high quality of Tasmanian brewing barley shine through. The honey-like malt sweetness from the spirit is just lifted by the gentle but rich spice from a French Oak casks. I have always been a big fan of sherry, so the Apera cask speaks to me in a big way. This is the evening sipper in the chair by the fire, and a great way to kick things off for Furneaux.”