The Story

What we know as Old Kempton Distillery today started life as the Redlands Distillery back in 2012. The original distillery was situated within the stunning Redlands Estate in the Derwent Valley and was purchased in 2008 by agricultural consultant Peter Hope and his wife Elizabeth.

The Hope’s set about preserving and restoring the near 200 year old estate that once grew everything from barley, hemp, tobacco and hops. Bill and Lyn Lark then jumped on board as investors and consultants, seeing huge potential for whisky making at the site.

The vision was to create a truly paddock to bottle single malt whisky – a Tasmanian version of Kilchoman. Tasmania’s other field to bottle producer, Belgrove Distillery, had shown it could be done and continues to push the boundaries of the concept even today.

But right from the start, things didn’t go to plan at Redlands. Despite the best efforts of head distiller Dean Jackson and later Robbie and Emma Gilligan, harvests were poor, malting often failed, and it got harder and harder each season to continue.

For a variety of reasons, the estate was eventually sold in 2015 to Casella Family Brands, owners of Yellow Tail wine and now Morris Whisky. Suddenly, Redlands didn’t have a home to operate from and the decision was made to relocate the distillery to another site.

Dysart House 40 minutes away in Kempton, a Georgian-style coach house built in the 1840s, was proposed as an ideal estate for the relocation. But around the same time, Sydney-based service station owner and property developer John Ibrahim purchased Dysart.

Ibrahim, at that point, had no dealings with the Tasmanian whisky industry. But Bill Lark, still a Redlands investor, eventually met with Ibrahim and convinced him to turn Dysart House into the new Redlands Distillery. Ibrahim became an investor as part of the deal and quickly developed a huge passion for the Tasmanian industry, going on to invest in Shene Estate & Distillery and found Callington Mill Distillery.

After the relocation, the Redlands name was eventually changed to Old Kempton Distillery and production continued in a similar but more consistent fashion at the new site. Distilling originally took place in the historic old stables next to Dysart House but was eventually moved into a purpose-built distillery building behind the property. The paddock to bottle idea was briefly touted as a possibility using adjacent fields but has since been abandoned. Two new bond stores will soon be added to the site instead.

Spirit distilled at the Redlands and Dysart sites has been matured in a wide range of casks, predominately ex-wine, and the Old Kempton single malt range now stretches to almost a dozen current and special release bottlings available at any one time.

The experienced Rob Tyson, formerly of Lark, is now overseeing the maturation and bottling program, and the Old Kempton team of investors are looking to expand the business in future years.