The Story

William (Bill) McHenry founded what is now the world’s most southern family-owned distillery in 2011.

A few years before its founding, McHenry, approaching 50, crashed into what you might term an awakening or, less poetically, a midlife crisis. This crash followed a literal car accident which McHenry walked away from wondering what his 30-year career as high-flyer in the pharmaceutical industry amounted to.

In the weeks following, he aired this discontent with his neighbour, Graham, who jokingly piped up with a solution: with a name like William Fraser McHenry, surely Bill should be making whisky and learning the bagpipes. The bagpipes side of that equation didn’t really appeal, but the whisky side did.

McHenry became infatuated with the idea. Work trips suddenly morphed into whisky research trips, while his biotech labs became playgrounds for distilling experiments.

For McHenry, there was only one thing left to do: find the ideal space and environment to bring this whisky dream to life. And when he found a Scottish distiller in his family tree, it was like a magnetic sign from the grave. It told him the location of the distillery had to resemble a Scottish climate – it had to be near the poles.

Soon enough, the Sydney-based father of three had purchased a property about as close to the South Pole as you could get near Port Arthur in Tasmania. The whole family then relocated to Tassie, and McHenry created Australia’s most southerly distillery in the process.

Tucked into the side of Mount Arthur, a ten minute drive from the infamous penal settlement, the site is one of the most stunning locations for a distillery in Australia. Vistas aside, the location is also perfect for whisky making: five natural springs exist on the property, supplying all of the required water needed for production.

McHenry’s plan for the site was to turn it into a sort village of activity and employment for the region, which has one of the highest unemployment levels in the country, despite more than 250,000 visitors coming down there each year.

But McHenry sensed that he needed a point of difference, so he acquired a pot-column still built by Hobart-based Knapp Lewer suited to producing a lighter style of spirit. The still was also perfectly suited to gin production, and McHenry started releasing an array of quality gins to bring in some cash flow. But the gins were so well-received, winning numerous awards and plaudits, that McHenry suddenly turned into one of our star Aussie gin distillers.

By that stage, McHenry had started to notice that some weird things were going on with his maturing casks of whisky.

For one, he was losing alcohol by volume (ABV) in the spirit over time. This is normal in the freezing, damp dunnages of Scotland, but it’s unique in Australia: our warmer, drier climate sees the ABV increase (water evaporates out of the spirit faster than alcohol) and maturation normally occurs twice as quickly as a result. This is the case even just an hour up the road at the distilleries dotted around Hobart.

‘We have a unique microclimate here on Mount Arthur,’ McHenry says. ‘The Southern Ocean is our neighbour, and we have significantly higher rainfall than in other parts of the state, with the average humidity level around 72 per cent.’

McHenry had basically replicated the Scottish climate he was after. But now there was a downside: his whisky was taking much longer to mature than he’d anticipated.

He created the Three Capes whisky brand using stock sourced from Sullivans Cove to keep the whisky side of the McHenry story in focus. Then in 2016, the first McHenry single malt whisky arrived, matured in ex-Bourbon casks for four years and then further finished in ex-tawny casks. The inaugural release had been produced using wash sourced from external breweries, but since that time, whisky making at the site has undergone some changes.

A 1500 litre Peter Bailly still was installed in late 2016 and has become the primary whisky still. Brewing has also been set up onsite in recent years, and the distillery will soon develop its own brewing brand on top of its distilling activities.

The site has also continued to grow with accommodation cabins and villas now available, a new cellar door added, and a stone maturation warehouse called The Vault built into the mountain.

The whisky releases so far have predominately been matured in 100 and 200 litre ex-Bourbon casks and then finished in smaller ex-fortified wine casks. But there have been plenty of exceptions, including single cask Bourbon, tokay and port (tawny) cask releases, and a suite of casks previously containing different fills are in bond. Heavily peated malt is also currently being distilled for future releases.

In 2020, the Southern Cross Whisky Series was announced in collaboration with Vintage Cellars, although it’s unclear if the retailer is continuing with the bottlings.

In 2021, McHenry also worked with Chef Matt Moran to release a collaboration whisky and gin under Amazon’s new Further South Spirits brand.

There’s always a new project on the go at McHenry Distillery. And with the whisky releases continuing to evolve and any number of new spirits, beers and events to look out for, this ambitious site has become a must-see destination for Australian whisky and spirits lovers.