The Story
The Aisling Distillery is unique in the world of whisky distilleries. On the production side of things, there’s nothing too irregular going on, with founders Mark and Michelle Burns producing single malt whisky, rum and gin at their facility in Griffith, about a six hour drive west of Sydney.
The peculiarity comes when you look at the other activity they perform at this facility: still making.
The husband and wife team also run Burns Welding & Fabrication out of the same site, making this one of the only places in the world where you can buy whisky and a still from the same cellar door.
The engineering side of the business came first. Mark Burns had been one of the region’s top welders and fabricators for years, and his expertise led a few local distillers to his doorstep asking if he could possibly apply that experience to making stills.
Burns got to work, did a bloody good job of it – as whisky distillers like Corowa, Chief’s Son and Backwoods would attest (just to name a few) – and suddenly, orders for stills from all over the country started pouring in. These days, you’ll find dozens of stills, condensers, spirit safes, fermentation tanks and even heat exchanges built by Mark, Michelle and their team in distilleries across the country.
The Burns’ then became so involved and excited by the intricacies of the process, and with Mark’s Scottish heritage calling to him, that they decided to start distilling their own whisky and spirits on-site.
The still Mark and Michelle use for whisky production (you can guess where it was built) is a 2200 litre steam fired set-up. Mark also installed his own purpose-built, top secret condenser, which he believes adds a unique quality to the Aisling new make.
Whisky production has doubled at Aisling in the last two years, with barley for their single malt sourced from the surrounding region, renowned for grain growing. It’s even more famous for wine, and with McWilliams and a plethora of other wineries down the road, Aisling spirit is matured in all manner of quality ex-wine casks, predominately ex-tawny and apera.
The first Aisling single malt whisky releases landed in November 2020, a tawny and apera-matured offering, marrying 100 litre casks together that had been matured for just over four years.
Future releases will continue to feature whisky matured in 100 litre and larger format casks, with spirit currently maturing in a huge array of different styles of Australian fortified wine casks, including botrytis semillon and pedro ximenez.
Whiskies Reviewed:
The Aisling Single Malt Tawny Series 1
The Aisling Single Malt Apera Series 1