The Story

Located in Bass Strait, north east of Tasmania, Flinders Island is the largest of the Furneaux Group of islands, with a population of around 900 people. The island has long been famed for its untouched beaches and clear waters, but it now adds whisky distilling to its list of charms.

Damien Newton-Brown is the man responsible for bringing whisky to the island. Better known as the ‘Brown’ behind The McCorkell Brown Group, a property and construction company that also owns the famed Brae restaurant in Victoria, Newton-Brown has a long association with Flinders. His parents honeymooned on the island and then bought a farm there, so Newton-Brown spent childhood holidays on Flinders and never stopped visiting as he got older.

About eight years ago, the farm next door to the family property came up for sale. Newton-Brown lent on his business partner in Melbourne to help him buy the property, and when Sullivans Cove won world’s best single malt in 2014, the site was given a rethink. He remembered that Flinders had a number of marshes and bogs, and as a big Laphroaig fan, he dreamed up the idea of creating a heavily peated malt whisky on the island.

After visiting Tasmania’s distilleries, consulting with Bill Lark, and spending time on Islay learning from the home of peated whisky, Newton-Brown then repurposed a section of the Flinders Wharf precinct into a small-scale distillery.

Furneaux Distillery officially opened in 2019. Spirit was initially acquired through Chris Condon at Launceston Distillery, so we got a first peak at the project with preview releases in March 2020. A few months later, the first peated Furneaux single malt whiskies wholly distilled on Flinders Island were released.

The logistics around producing these whiskies is intense to say the least. To inject Flinders Island peat into the process, malt is sourced from Devonport, smoked on Flinders Island and then sent to Launceston Distillery to be mashed and fermented. The wash is then sent back to Furneaux Distillery to be twice-distilled through two Knapp Lewer pot stills.

It’s a seriously laborious process to create what are some seriously intriguing Australian peated malts. Newton-Brown and distiller Tom Ambroz (the latter previously worked at Sullivans Cove before making the move to Furneaux Distillery full-time) are eventually hoping to grow and then peat smoke their own malt on the island to create a truly Tasmanian take on those famed Islay malts.

Currently, Furneaux peated whiskies, some of which are mashed with equal proportions of Bairds malt from Inverness in Scotland, are maturing in Bourbon, apera and tawny casks. They’re available in very limited quantities, and will remain so over the next few years until production begins to ramp up.