Chapter 26 in our series of celebrating Australian whisky takes us to Furneaux distillery at Flinders Island where the intense connections between people and the land synergise as one to create a whisky wonderland unlike any other Australia has to offer.
Flinders Island lies in eastern Bass Strait, between Tasmania and the Australian mainland and is named after Matthew Flinders, the English navigator who surveyed its coasts in 1798. A remote island in the Furneaux Group, Flinders Island has an area of 1,367 km² and is exposed on all sides by the rugged and capricious nature of the Bass Straight.
The unpredictable island living has produced a salt of the earth population of approx. 900+ strong who are go-getters, living as one with the often-unforgiving land, appreciating whatever bounty their hard work and island bestows upon them. Famous for untouched beaches with crystal clear waters and some of Australia’s greatest produce, the island has been a chef’s secret pantry for many years now.
“When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself”
– Jacques Cousteau (French naval officer, ocean explorer, filmmaker and author.
The Founders – A friendship forged in junior school
Co-founders of Furneaux distillery, Damien Newton Brown and Howard McCorkell met in kindergarten as childhood friends and have remained thick as thieves ever since. Although they’re based in Melbourne, running their very successful ‘The McCorkell Brown Group’ (a property and construction company), the history of their time at Flinders dates back to when Damien’s parents bought a property on the island while honeymooning there many years ago. So, as mates – Damien and Howard would spend many summer holidays on the island basking in all its wind-swept glory.
Then many years later, after a trip to Islay in Scotland as whisky enthusiasts, Damien and Howard realised that Flinders Island shared a slightly similar terroir with Islay, conditions traditionally made for excellent whisky production; namely naturally occurring peat, pristine water sources and a strong maritime climate.
Upon their return, Damien vigorously put himself through the general certificate distilling course and went about learning every aspect of whisky and spirits production. Damien and Howard then went to work figuring out the logistics of operating a distillery on one of the most remote locations in Australia. With one barge of supplies a week and the only other access by small planes, it made for a difficult task………. with a delicious conclusion, producing a really unique spirit individual to most Aussie distilleries
Furneaux’s Gypsy Distilling.
While awaiting the completion of their distillery, Damien reached out to Chris Condon (co-owner and distiller at Launceston Distillery) who generously gave his time and resources to help distill Furneaux’s first batch of peated and unpeated spirit at his distillery. So, Damien, a distiller in his own right at this stage, used Launceston’s stills and equipment to produce his own new-make spirit and whisky. These first batches were all 500ml bottles and could arguably be called independent bottlings; however, the team prefers to use the word ‘Gypsy Distilling’ when talking about their early days because they weren’t purchasing the new make spirit from Launceston, they were distilling the spirit themselves, filling their barrels and sending them straight to Flinders Island for maturation.
When the team sent us these bottles and samples of their wares a few years back, we were hit for six, almost drooling at the thought of what Furneaux could truly be once their own stills were commissioned with maturation taking place in large format barrels, full time next to the maritime quagmire of the Bass Straight.
Meet the Maker
Tom Ambroz, is one laid back and enigmatic human whose trajectory to whisky distilling was almost a decade in the making. He’s virtually done it all. A Tasmanian native, he grew up in Hobart before moving to Melbourne when he was 18 years old to work the bar scene. Falling in love with the art of slinging cocktails and rum, he ended up owning a Cuban cocktail bar called Los Barbudos with a heavy rum focus in Fitzroy in 2013 with mates. Never doing anything in halves, his small team flew to Cuba to spend a few weeks ‘researching’ cocktails and rums bringing back some almighty creations including the authentic Ernest Hemingway daiquiri. The story goes that Hemingway, who didn’t have a taste for sweet drinks but loved rum and citrus, entrusted El Floridita’s long time bartender, Constantino Ribailagua to craft a daiquiri that suited his palate. Fit for a literary legend – the Hemingway Daiquiri was born.
Throughout that time, Tom was taking a deep dive into the world of spirits through trainings, masterclasses and small distillations. After his bar closed in 2017, he moved out of hospitality and into sales with a company called Only Bitters that focused on a curated selection of aromatic bitters. Soon after, he found himself back in Tasmania and after chatting with him at length, Tom Ambroz comments;
“When I left Tasmania, there was Lark and Sullivans Cove and that was about it. Upon my return, I was greeted with a booming Tassie whisky industry that was exploding at that point. So, I got a job working at Sullivans Cove. Now, the job was mostly focused around the cellar door. I was helping run the tastings and the cellar door and while doing that, I ended up getting trained by the Sullivans team in distilling. I ended up doing a little part-time distilling with the team and then ended up on the tasting panel with Sullivans Cove as well. It was during the change of ownership, but Pat McGuire was still there the whole time I was. I had to pinch myself when I ended up sitting in a room with Pat McGuire, Heather Tillott, and inventory manager, Michael Eastman, as we were going through the cask samples a couple of times a week, tasting what was coming up and what we were going to do with it”
“That was really a huge learning experience for me. I learned on the job. It was sort of a slow absorption of knowledge over about 10 years and then a really rapid education on distillation on the job when I started working in Tasmania. I’ve since gone through the Institute of Brewing and Distilling course as well
A most serendipitous meeting.
In March 2019, Tom accompanied his partner Nicole to Flinders Island where she was doing tourism PR at the time working on the Flinders Island Food and Crayfish Festival, learn more HERE
“I went to Flinders Island and spent the weekend there up at Killiecrankie Beach and by chance, I saw two guys pull up in their boat and come to shore holding big buckets full of crayfish, salmon and abalone. We had a leg of lamb ready to barbeque and we got chatting across the fence from each other and decided to share dinner and a few beers. We just sort of combined our parties and one of the guys that was there was Damien who was already building his distillery at the time” says Tom.
And the rest as they say, is history!
That moment of serendipity saw Tom join the Furneaux team soon after in 2019 and spent his first week at Launceston Distillery distilling the last of their Gypsy batches. They then loaded all the barrels of whisky on the back of their Toyota Hilux, loaded the boat and Tom’s first job on Flinders Island was commissioning the new stills.
Quite the journey indeed.
Flinders Island Peat – The catalyst that created Furneaux Distillery
Flinders Island is blessed with an abundance of some of Australia’s most unique peat bogs, made up of vegetation consisting of succulent swamp-marsh herbs, tussocks, bordered by coastal heath, tea tree and Melaleucas (in the Myrtle family). The organic material spends much of its time underwater and provides a very interesting flavour profile to Furneaux’s peated whiskies. As mentioned earlier it was the access to this peat that was the ‘lightbulb moment’ for Damien while visiting Islay with the many similarities both regions share.
The team comments:
“We are having a lot of fun experimenting with the flavours at our disposal. Our peating process is what we call “post malting”, where we are wetting down our malted Tasmanian barley and smoking it dry with our endemic Flinders peat. The classic alternative to this is the original Scottish method of using peat smoke to dry their barley from the malting stage, where the newly malted wet grain is smoked for up to 20 hours, in large buildings specifically designed for this purpose”
“We wanted to see how the flavours of peat from either ends of the globe would work together, so for these batches of whisky, we combined half Tasmanian malt that we had peated on the island, with half Scottish heavily peated malt. The results are phenomenally interesting. The majority of the Flinders peat smoke flavour sits on the back palate, quite earthy, warm and aromatic. Scottish peat on the other hand, is made up of mostly spagnum moss and grasses, and provides to the palate a much more immediate smoke profile, with a dark roasted, sweet, bbq flavour up front. These flavours together have produced a really unique and delicious whisky”
This thirst for innovation resulted in the release of our favourite Gipsy distilled expression from Furneaux, yielding 110 bottles (long sold out) that was released in August 2020.
Furneaux Distillery Co. 50/50 Flinders & Scottish Peated Bourbon Cask Single Malt Whisky 500ml 48% – FSPB1
Silver Medal – 2020 (World Whiskies Awards)
This 50/50 peated Bourbon cask single-malt whisky uses 50% Scottish Peat and 50% Flinders Island peat which the distillery believes gives the whisky a “classical meaty peat profile” on the palate…. And they’re not wrong, it’s a marvel in small format maturation aged in 3 x 20L American Oak Ex Bourbon, distilled by Damien and then married together by Tom Ambroze.
Our Tasting Thoughts
Nose: Peach flesh and lemon rind join worn leather and moist, smoked earth.
Palate: Balanced and waxy – expect notes of vanilla custard, grapefruit, orange peel and tobacco leaf, floating on plumes of distant char.
Finish: This one lingers in a creamy tail of brine, ash and warming smoke.
Furneaux’s Original bottlings
Once Furneaux’s construction was complete, the team distilled its last batch of whisky under their old label and revamped their packaging, adding 700ml bottles instead of the 500ml bottles once used with only a minimal price rise which was whisky-music to many enthusiasts’ ears at the time. The first releases of the newly designed bottles 100% distilled at Furneaux were released starting from March 2022.
We currently have 6 batches in stock with the distillery sold out of all but 2 expressions. You can view our range HERE: where you’ll find we’ve listed a few of their older 500ml expressions from our back catalogue.
Furneaux’s Bond store/Dunnage warehouse
In only a few short years, Furneaux has outgrown the bond store connected to their distillery; “We had an issue with our current bond storage and had run out of space really early on and I was getting all this afternoon sun which was making these casks a little bit too cask driven” Tom says. So, the team built an authentic dunnage warehouse on a farm that co-founder Damien owns about 15 minutes north of their current location at Sawyers Bay which provides the perfect microclimate for whisky maturation.
What is a dunnage warehouse?
In whisky language, a dunnage warehouse is quite quaint, opened to the earth below the barrels. This differs to a racked warehouse which is most often a concrete and steel shed in which distilleries can fit a much larger number of casks. The dunnage style of whisky storage is centuries old, and still used by some of our favourite Scottish whisky distilleries such as Bruichladdich and Kilchoman. The open earth flooring will regulate temperature and let humidity into the warehouse, making a dark, musty and cool environment, perfect for maturation.
So generally speaking – dark and cool is beneficial for a whisky’s slow maturation, drawing on cask influence as well as spiritus elements while the whisky is breathing and developing a balance of flavour.
“Higher humidity will also mean less evaporation, so we should see a steady but controlled change in our spirits strength, volume and, most importantly, flavour”.
– Furneaux distillery
Time to Geek out on the good stuff!
- Knapp Lewer copper pot stills
- Enclosed electric heating, shell and tube condensers
- 1600L wash still, 700L spirit still.
- 120L Frankenstein hybrid pot/column/carterhead still, affectionately called ‘Frank’. With the turn of a few valves the distiller can configure this still to produce different styles of spirit such as vodka, gin, experimental brandy runs and is lined up for some experimental whiskies soon. The options are endless!
- Designed for a 1000L wash run, producing 100L new make at 63.4%
Ferment (of various expressions)
- Sawyers Bay Single Malt Unpeated – 100% Tasmanian pale malt
- Flinders Island Peated – 100% Tasmanian pale malt peated on Flinders Island with local coastal peat, current peating is 2-day dry smoked @ approx. 17ppm
- Smoky Wedding – The “marriage” of malt, 50:50 Flinders Peated and Scottish Peated malt in the mash bill, approx. 31 ppm
- Seven-day ferment, approx. 7% ABV
Maturation
- Coastal dunnage bond store, half slab is open earth to enhance natural humidity of the Furneaux islands and mitigate evaporative loss
- Filling at 63.4% ABV
- Began with 20L blood-tubs for 2-2.5yr short term maturation, they’re starting now to see maturity of their quarter casks. The team have also filled barrels, barriques and hogsheads for longer term maturation
- Approx. 225 casks are currently ageing, from first fill bourbon, through to Tawny, Apera, Oloroso, PX, second fill Furneaux, white & red wine, rum, botrytis and more…
Post-Maturation
- Either casks married or single cask depending on best quality and flavour.
- Aerating over days/weeks to allow latent volatility to escape.
- Slow proofing over weeks to mitigate saponification (soapy profile) and allow best quality texture and balance.
- Dilution to flavour based on sensory test of each release, releases to date have been 43-48.5% ABV.
- Non-chill filtering for clarity without losing texture
- Bottled, labelled, signed and sent by hand on Flinders Island.
The future is now!
Once the dunnage warehouse was completed, it got Tom thinking that even more expansion was needed. For example, it was time for the team to start producing their own wash on Flinders Island as the cost of buying and getting the wash to the island from Launceston distillery was simply not sustainable. This sparked the big decision to relocate the entire distillery to Damien’s farm in Sawyers Bay next to their dunnage warehouse, and the new location is absolutely breathtaking.
It’s 1.5km of untouched beachfront pasture on the west coast of Flinders Island. The relocation will also include a new brewhouse, bottling room and cellar door. The team is hoping to move the stills in January 2024 with an opening date of around March/April 2024.
The distillery has also sown their first crop of planet barley (a very stable yielding spring barley with high quality grain) in September 2023 with the aim to harvest around Feb/March 2024 (assuming a successful harvest and malting).
With all things going well, the distillery is looking at creating their very first paddock to bottle whiskies with every element of the whisky making process done on site. The distillery is also hiring at the moment with plans to employ a couple of distillers in January 2024 to be full-time based on Flinders Island brewing and distilling while Tom takes on more of a sales/ambassadorship-business role within the company.
Final Thoughts
We’ve supported and sold Furneaux whisky since their inception and it’s been such a pleasure watching the distillery grow into the powerhouse it’s no doubt destined to be. The tenacity to even entertain building a distillery on Flinders Island shows a passion and drive few could aspire to accomplish and with Tom, Damien and Howard steering the ship, the distillery is in great hands.
As we face a new tumultuous future full of many headwinds and uncertainties, the Furneaux distillery is firing on all 4 cylinders. Having carved out their own piece of whisky paradise, they’re quietly expanding and releasing whisky in limited quantities while ramping up production for much larger releases soon to come.
Through rugged isolation – Perfections soars!
The Old Barrelhouse