CHAPTER 1
Not-so-
humble beginnings BY LUKE MCCARTHY
A forgotten history of where it all began…
F
or those new to Australian whisky, the current scene can be tricky enough to navigate, with well over 60 distilleries now bottling their own whisky and another dozen soon to follow. But unbeknown to even seasoned enthusiasts is the extensive history of Australian whisky production that predates the current boom period. Well before the renaissance that had its origins in Tasmania in the 1990’s, Australia produced an estimated 140 million litres of whisky from the 1860s through to the 1980s. To unearth this history and understand where the current industry came from, three distinct eras of Australian distilling need to be examined. The story starts with the fledgling industries that developed in the penal colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) between 1788 and 1862. From 1863 to 1929, whisky-making then prospered in Victoria following the introduction of the Distillation Act 1862, which helped to spawn Australia’s most significant whisky distilleries (South Australia briefly joined the party with a handful of malt whisky producers during the same period). And then from 1930 to 1980, the blended whisky wave began, with international conglomerates buying up and ultimately putting a stop to whisky production in Australia before its rebirth in the 1990s. 19
