Distillery and Production
Centuries of distilling traditions yielded well-proven approaches to building stills and whisky production. So, when the idea to build the distillery was born, so was the notion that these traditions could also be improved by innovation. This was the very foundation and motivation for this daring group of dairy farmers who believed they could do better.
CHALLENGING CONVENTION
Using their expertise in dairy production, they designed unique, non-traditional pot stills that produce the most elegant, yet flavoursome new-make spirits - fundamental to making incredibly smooth single malts. In doing so, these pioneering dairy farmers made Hellyers Road the home of modern whisky innovation in Australia.
MASHING
We have always produced our own wash for our single malt whisky. In general, our team mills and mashes twice a week from barley grown in Tasmania and malted just half an hour away (for our un-peated expressions). Our mashing process benefits from the purity of the rain water we use. Our wash is distinctive, neither a cloudy wort nor a clear wort and produces a beer of about 7% ABV that forms the backbone of our whiskies.
FERMENTATION
We cool our ferment to maintain a maximum of 32° Celsius over an average fermentation duration of 50 hours. The yeast we use creates a wash with an abundance of fruity characteristics. Being a high-performance yeast, the fermentation reaches 85% attenuation(completion) within the first 16 hours. The overall length of the fermentation allows the yeast to clean up and reduce the number of sulphurous compounds in the wash, resulting in a clean, fruity and floral spirit – a signature of Hellyers Road whiskies.
Distillation
Our wash still is rare in Australia, with a working capacity of 42,000L and a total capacity of 60.000L
– making it a giant in the industry. The tall cylindrical shape of the pot encourages a higher reflux rate due to the amount of headspace above the liquid level in the still. Our spirit therefore is more thoroughly worked due to this height, in turn enhancing its purity.
We run the wash still distillation quite slowly with a partial charge of roughly 31,000L - to allow for this maximum reflux. When the spirit finally reaches the condenser, it has already undergone many “mini distillations” within the pot itself, resulting in significant purification, producing a high alcohol concentration in our initial distillate. This can emerge from the wash still as high 70% ABV, compared to shorter traditional squat stills that produce around 55% ABV for their first run.
The extended distillation time in the wash still also contributes to the complexity of our spirit. The extended opportunity for the wash to undergo Maillard reactions, produces furfural and many other desirable compounds which contribute distinct complex cereal and nutty notes in the Hellyers Road spirit.
Our spirit still has a working capacity of 20,000L and total capacity of 30,000L. We run our spirit distillation slowly as well, applying the full benefit of time and care, which allows us to make very defined ‘cuts’, which are varied around the type of spirit we are aiming to produce. Guided by sensory assessments of the spirit, our distillers make multiple cut points that inform where best to cut our hearts or feints. Both of our stills have large copper condensing apparatus which contribute to the light and fruity spirit that we produce.
While our 3.6m wash still condenser stands tall with a stainless-steel outer shell, it contains 32 internal copper tubes that provide an exceptional amount of contact with our spirit– enhancing its purity.
“Our new-make is light and fruity with an underlying complexity. This provides many of the building blocks offlavour that form in the cask over time. It is the sum of its parts and is only ever as good as the processes that brought it to light. Our careful attention to detail throughout our processes from mashing, fermentation and distillation, along with rigorous quality control of our spirit means that only the very best spirit is put into cask”.
Fiona Coutts, Head Distiller.
Maturation
Hellyers Road has a number of bond stores in the area closely surrounding the distillery. Some are within a stone’s throw of Bass Strait, the tumultuous stretch of sea between the island of Tasmania and the rest of Australia. The consistently cool, but not cold, temperatures and high humidity results in a maturation of spirit that is more rapid - perhaps twice as fast - as in the cold climate of Scotland, but remains a gentle maturation, lending itself to very long-term aging to create incredibly complex whisky.
Adding to this, the sea salt literally hanging in the air contributes a unique coastal attribute to the maturing spirit. The other unusual consequence of this unique climatic combination is that relative rates of evaporation (Angels’ Share) from the cask are such that the alcohol content on entry is much the same as at the end of maturation - even over the very long term.
Oak Program
The Hellyers Road oak program is a spotlight on both diversity and history.
With a broad selection of American Oak casks from many of the leading American Bourbon producers, through to exquisite French Oak casks from the world’s leading wineries and bodegas, the Hellyers Road oak program is a treasure trove of variety spanning 25 years.
We also pioneered the use of French Oak Tasmanian Pinot Noir casks bringing together two of Tasmania’s finest products - fine Single Malt Whisky and Pinot Noir wine. The Pinot Noir casks add a delightful freshness and structural complexity to the maturing whisky.
The cask program also includes fortified and dessert wine casks such as Port, Sherry, Vin Santo, Maury Rancio, Marsala. We exclusively use maturation casks rather than seasoned fortified wine casks - indeed many of the Tawny Port casks are between 50 – 70 years of age, hailing from South Australia’s most notable and historic fortified wine producers.
Peated
While Tasmania is celebrated for its beautifully wild, rugged, and pristine landscape, this beautiful island state is unable to produce the desired style of peated grain – those with intense smoky characters synonymous with peated whisky expressions from Scotland. As such, the distillery sources its peated malt from Bairds Maltings in Scotland – renowned for supplying many of the peated whisky distillery icons. The result is of course clear to see – Hellyers Road has consistently won awards for its aged peated whiskies, establishing the distillery as a leading producer of this style in Australia.
