The Story

Fleurieu Distillery is located in the coastal town of Goolwa, about an hour south of Adelaide, close to where the Murray River meets the Southern Ocean. Gareth and Angela Andrews, the owners and distillers, have been brewing and distilling on the Goolwa Wharf Precinct since 2004, when they first opened the Steam Exchange Brewery, one of South Australia’s earliest craft beer producers.

As a tourist destination, Goolwa has quite an offering. It’s one of only two places in the world where you can jump from a steam train to a steam boat, and the Andrews have successfully kept the tens of thousands of visitors who flock to the site every year adequately lubricated.

But their beer and whisky offerings have never been what you might call ‘touristy’. Gareth’s Steam Exchange beers won a stack of awards when brewing was the primary focus, with his quirky limited release offerings winning over legions of beer geeks. And when the decision was made to pivot to whisky, again, the Andrews didn’t set out to produce simple, crowd-pleasing drops. Instead, they wanted to make some of the most complex single malt whiskies their skills could muster.

One of their early inspirations was Islay’s Caol Ila Distillery. The power-house peated whisky producer is renowned for its consistently brilliant smoky, sweet, iodine single malts. So when the Andrews thought about the kind of whisky they wanted to create, Caol Ila seemed an appropriate model, especially as they both share stunning seaside locations.

The original still built for Fleurieu came from Knapp Lewer in Tasmania, and its design closely mirrored Caol Ila’s: a large base with a long neck which drops into a descending lyne arm. From the get go, the quality of the new make was vetted by a number of industry professionals – Tim Duckett from Heartwood even bought some of the spirit before any Fleurieu whisky had been released. High praise.

When Fleurieu’s first whisky did come out in 2016, the praise grew louder, as consumers discovered a rich, salty, slightly smoky single malt that spoke of the place it’s from.

‘We’ve found that our coastal climate, particularly with the cool sea breeze we get in the evenings, is ideal for maturing whisky,’ Gareth says. ‘Our location means the spirit in our barrels absorbs the surrounding environment, and we definitely think we get a unique distillery character as a result.’

There’s no doubt that the Fleurieu Peninsula has its own unique micro-climate. It’s a well-studied area, with the McLaren Vale wine region only 40 minutes north and the Southern Fleurieu emerging as a producer of fine maritime-influenced reds.

The location clearly influences Fleurieu whiskies. Unlike most Australian whisky distilleries, Fleurieu whisky decreases in alcohol by volume (similar to Scotland) as it matures and sucks in the surrounding sea air (most distillery locations in Australia see an increase in ABV over time due to the drier climate).

You taste these flavours in the whiskies Gareth and Angela bottle. Each release is normally a marriage of casks, and because their casks are filled with spirit in pairs, the Andrews give them a range of names, often Hollywood-inspired, hence Bogart & Bacall, Ecto Gammat and We’ll Always Have Paris.

Such was the quality of these early releases, the awards starting pouring in, both here in Australia and internationally, with judges praising their complexity and balance. Being so close to South Australia’s great wineries has meant that Australian tawny and apera casks – all 100-300 litres in size (another great decision) – have been taken full advantage of, and every release has displayed thick, syrupy characters thanks to their previous inhabitants. Bourbon and other styles of casks have also been filled, and are due out in coming years.

A number of independent bottlings of Fleurieu have been released from Tasmanian Independent Bottlers, while the 2020 Black Gate/Fleurieu collaboration was another great example of why the distillery is one of the county’s top whisky producers.