‘Blend’ is a dirty word in the Australian whisky industry. Rarely will you hear an Australian distiller praise a blend, it’s rarer still to see different distilleries blend whisky together.
The reasons for this are obvious enough. Australian whisky distilleries are young. Most are still trying to establish their own identity and brand, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for blending projects. Mature stock is also scarce, with producers quickly selling the vast majority of what they make.
But thankfully, change is coming. Blended Australian whiskies are gradually becoming more viable – see the raging success of Starward Two Fold. But as most Australian distillers produce pot still malt whisky, blended malts are now presenting unique opportunities.
Exhibit A – the recent collaborative effort between Fleurieu and Black Gate. The ‘Country to Coast’ bottling is a marriage of two single malt whisky casks: a Black Gate heavily peated apera cask, and a Fleurieu peated tawny cask. In Scottish parlance, it’s a blended malt (previously ‘vatted malt’ before the term was officially changed in 2009).
Gareth and Angela Andrews from Fleurieu, and Brian and Genise Hollingworth from Black Gate, have been talking about doing a project like this for years.
‘It actually goes back a fair way,’ says Gareth Andrews. ‘We’ve been good friends with Brian and Genise for a long time – we get on like a house on fire. And we’d been saying, hey, we’ve gotta do this, we’re gonna do a collab. No-one else is doing it.’
Gareth and Angela Andrews, Australian Distilled Spirits Awards. Photo – Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria
From there, Brian and Genise were happy to send samples to Fleurieu and let Gareth and Angela do the blending – a process they had more experience with. ‘It was a big moment,’ says Angela Andrews. ‘It’s a high risk thing. And it’s trust. You need a huge amount of trust to have the confidence that the other distiller will take care of your baby.’
Gareth and Angela got to work, blending samples of the two single malts together, before settling on a final ratio. ‘We were trying to create something that highlighted the best of both whiskies,’ says Angela.
That meant dialing down the influence of the Fleurieu, with its heavy maltiness and smoke on the back palate, to successfully integrate with the richer, peatier Black Gate – more toffee, caramel and grunge on the front palate.
‘It’s the start of a conversation,’ says Gareth Andrews. ‘There are big distilleries in Australia now producing larger volumes of whisky. But to have selected distilleries from right across the country getting together to create an Australian blended whisky would be pretty sensational. And I’m not saying our collab is the start of this, but if someone doesn’t do it, how are we ever going to get to that point?’
Federal Distilleries blended malt from the 1920s, and a slightly later Old Court blended malt
Blended whisky was once the mainstay of the Australian industry. When whisky production started here in the 1800s, most of the early Australian distilleries either sold stock direct to merchants or released single distillery products.
That changed as the industry grew. Distilleries amalgamated and blended malts like the Joshua Brothers bottlings and the successful Old Court brand took off in the 1920s and 30s. In the decades following, the success of blended Scotch – column distilled grain whisky married with malt – changed the blueprint, and dozens of Australian blended whisky brands like Corio, Windsor and Bond 7 dominated the market.
Today, the Australian industry seems to be following the same pattern: single distillery whiskies, to blended malts, to ‘traditional’ blends containing column distilled grain whisky.
Of course, Tim Duckett, with Heartwood and Tasmanian Independent Bottlers (TIB), was the first recent producer to play around with blended malts. Duckett’s whiskies are clearly more idiosyncratic than those from the previous era, but his foresight and experimentation has given him unparalleled experience in blending Australian malt whiskies.
His first blended malt was Vat out of Hell, a marriage of Lark and Sullivans Cove. But Duckett’s The Beagle bottlings have pushed the style even further, marrying all sorts of different malt whiskies together to create some properly crazy whiskies.
‘I’m not a big thinker,’ Duckett says, wryly, of his process. ‘I’ll start with the base. As long as there’s no flaws in the base, I’ll see what I can create. With The Witches Cauldron and Wizard’s Sceptre and Don’t @#$%&* it up, Son!, we actually thought about how to make those. Whereas the Beagles are – right, if we add that to that, what do we get? And then, what are the flaws? How do we fix those? So it’s much more bucket chemistry, much more random.’
Duckett’s upcoming The Beagle release contains malt whisky from Lark, Redlands, Adams, Belgrove (malt), Nant and a renowned distillery from NSW. And under his TIB label, there’s the The Vatted Malt series: more easily attainable and affordable whiskies at around $145-150 (500ml bottle).
The Vatted Malt, third and fourth releases. Photo – Tim Duckett
Yes, these releases are still small-scale and limited. But now, Australian blended malts are about to receive a whole lot more attention with the upcoming release of Lark Distilling Co’s Symphony NO. 1. Due for official release in the next month, the blended malt will contain whisky from three Tasmanian distilleries and retail at $139 (500ml).
Head distiller at Lark, Chris Thomson, has spent years developing a formula for this blend, and the team are excited by the result.
Demetrius Giouzelis, head of marketing for Lark Distilling Co, tells us that the goal with the new bottling is to create a more approachable and accessible Tasmanian whisky.
‘Knowing what we’ve got at our disposal, in terms of multiple distilleries within our business, we’ve been pretty vocal about our aspiration to become the Penfolds of Australian whisky. We thought, well, how can we utilise what’s at our fingertips, and what could we do in the blended malts space?’ says Giouzelis.
‘We’ve ended up creating something that really is exceptional. We started out thinking this might not be as good as our single malts. Now we’re looking at something that’s certainly as good (ultimately it’s down to personal opinion). But for some, this is even better than our single malts.’
Lark Symphony N0. 1 Blended Malt Whisky
So, are we going to see more Aussie blended malts? And will other malt whisky producers look to join the party?
Giouzelis told us that while the Tasmanian whisky industry is very collegiate, he thinks the logistics around creating a consistently available blended malt whisky brand would prove too challenging for most.
Duckett agrees. ‘I think the industry is too fluid at the moment, and it’s too young. Competition will change the nature of the Tasmanian industry. We’re getting more bigger players in the game, or people with significantly more money, and they’re starting to protect their name and their brand, so they probably wouldn’t want to work with others. I mean, I’ll work with anyone, but hey, that’s me.’
Tasmanian Whisky Week blend, with proceeds to the Tasmanian Whisky and Spirits Association – Oz Whisky Review
We can, however, report that another Tasmanian blended whisky project is in the works and looking to launch in the next twelve months. And while not a blended malt, Giouzelis confirmed that Lark Distilling Co are looking at further blended whisky projects, particularly with the recent installation of a column still.
Back on the mainland, Gareth and Angela Andrews were so happy with the success of the Country to Coast bottling that they’re hoping to continue the collaboration with Black Gate. They’d also consider projects with other distilleries.
‘We’re in unprecedented times,’ says Angela Andrews. ‘With everything being shut down, it gave us a different focus, and that was really important. When all of your equipment is silent, and it’s dark and there are no people around the distillery, it’s a weird place to be. It’s a different world. So to do a collaboration like this was really positive, and we’d love to see more of it.’
