Kilderkin Distillery have just released Goldfields Single Malt Whisky, a five year old American oak ex-red wine cask expression. Since starting production in 2016, the Ballarat distillery, owned by Chris Pratt and Rebecca Mathews, has slowly built up its whisky stocks while producing the popular Larrikin Gin and liqueur range. This new release marks their first whisky bottling.
The distillery was originally housed at the Red Duck Brewery site, but it’s since moved to a lovely spot in Mount Pleasant where you can sample Kilderkin’s excellent gin range and now, single malt whisky, too.
The inaugural whisky was unveiled at a special event at the distillery last Friday, where Whisky on the Goldfields was performed by musician Amie Brûlée to accompany the launch.
Chris Pratt. Photo – Kilderkin Distillery
‘It’s good to finally have our whisky out there,’ says the Scottish-born Chris Pratt. ‘It’s been a lot of years of research and work, and it was great to have Amie talking about the history of whisky in the goldfields and the Ballarat region for the launch. It was really well received.’
Kilderkin was the first distillery in the Ballarat region to come online since the closure of the incredible Warrenheip Distillery in the 1930s, a famed ghost distillery that once produced some of the finest malt whisky in the country. And with the schmick Itinerant Spirits distillery recently opening their doors in the city centre, mark down Ballarat as a whisky destination to watch.
Most of Kilderkin’s early whisky production was filled into kilderkins (approx. 80 litre casks), appropriately. Although future batches of Goldfields whisky, the next of which is due early next year, will come from a vatting of kilderkin-aged whisky that has been further matured in larger format casks.
The initial release of Goldfields Single Malt Whisky is only 87 bottles and is available via the Kilderkin Distillery website for $155.
