“This unpeated expression is the last of the first. When Damien and Howie were still building the distillery on Flinders Island, when the stills were under fabrication by Peter Bailey’s team at Knapp Lewer, the first batches of Furneaux Distillery spirit were distilled at Launceston Distillery. Launceston’s head distiller and owner Chris Condon has been a huge supporter of Furneaux, brewing our wash, and allowing us to use his stills for the first distillations so we had some spirit in barrel when we opened our doors on the island in 2019.

When Furneaux head distiller Tom Ambroz was heading from the bright lights of Hobart to start a new life on Flinders Island, he stopped over in Launceston to spend a few days with Chris working on the last batches of spirit before we commissioned our own stills the next month. Some 20l casks were filled which have since been decanted, and one 100l American Oak ex Bourbon cask was filled with unpeated spirit. This cask now being a touch over 3 years old, has finally come to the end of its journey. And what a journey it’s been! Filled in Launnie, loaded into the back of the Furneaux ute, sailed across Bass Strait and brought up to Whitemark where it spent the next year and a bit. After that time we had built our bond store and loaded up this barrel and a heap of others onto the truck and out to its forever home sitting on the dunnage floor at the Furneaux Farm.

After maturation this whisky was decanted into a stainless steel vat and we began aeration and dilution trials on the liquid. Stirring every day for a few weeks while leaving the top open on the vessel letting the spirit “breathe” a little, evaporation helping air off some of the remaining volatile organic compounds. During dilution trials the whisky tasted best at 45% ABV, so we started adding water from our coastal rain tank in small increments during further aeration until we rested on the final bottling strength. As always, our whisky is non-chill filtered, so we let it sit and rest as the fatty flocculent sank to the bottom, then racked off the spirit and bottled it.

Our first single cask! On the nose it’s creamy, with notes of lemon peel and a fresh grassy aroma. On the palate you get toffee, citrus and a light medicinal note with a lovely salty minerality lingering on through the crème caramel finish.
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