I began 2017 by moving from easily the most distillery dense state in Australia, Tasmania, to easily the most public servant dense, the Australian Capital Territory. Canberra and the ACT in general is highly regarded for wine production with some of Australia’s best wineries are located nearby, but what about distilled spirits? I enlisted the help of local entrepreneur and founder of Local Spirit tours, Ben Osborne to take me and my friends on one of his Luxury Distillery Tours.

Baldwin owner/operator Anthony Baldwin and I share the opinion that you should be free to drink your whisky however you damn please without suffering the criticism of whisky snobs. I personally do not drink whisky with sweet mixers, but I quite liked the taste of the Baldwin premixed whisky & cola and I strongly encourage you to give it a try if bourbon & cola premixes are your thing. In my opinion, it tastes infinitely better than Jim Beam & Coke premix and supports a local Australian business rather than a massive multi-national.

What did I think of it?

Presentation: I personally love the Baldwin Distilling Company logo, it looks fantastic printed directly onto the 700ml short and stubby bottle. The Baldwin Rye is bottled at US 100 Proof or 50% ABV.

Appearance: Naturally amber gold in colour and chill filtered for clarity.

Aroma: Takes a little work to isolate the aromas in the glass but presents notes of fresh green grass, mint, vanilla and just a slight reminder of the harshness I noticed in the high alcohol (90% ABV) newmake spirit from which it began.

Flavour: Light mouthfeel with strong peppery spice popping through flavours of ginger and grapefruit with some sweeter melon flavours developing with the addition of water.

Finish: Long lingering spice on the tongue with a slight drying bitter aftertaste.

Would I buy it again?

Probably not, but there are few whiskies that I would. When there are so many whiskies out there to try, it takes something truly special to make my repeat buy list. Having only been around since 2015, it's safe to say that Baldwin Distilling Company has some room to improve and with time, I have no doubt they will. Right now Anthony Baldwin is tackling the lucrative premium spirits market head-on, which in itself is a point of difference to other Australian craft distilleries. If this approach pays off, Baldwin Distilling Company could become one of the biggest names in Australian distilling.


Disclaimer: I do not claim to have the nose and palate of a Master Sommelier, however, I am working to train my senses to better identify whisky aromas and flavours. Consider all my whisky 'Impressions' to be a work in progress and I hope to come back to each of them in the future to see if I notice anything different. Most importantly, I'm not just throwing around random aromas, flavours and adjectives for the hell of it; I am trying really hard to critically describe each whisky I taste - WhiskyDad.

So my wife bought a dehydrator. “What’s a dehydrator?” I asked. “It heats up and dries out food,” she said. “Like an oven?” I replied. “Yeah, but it doesn’t get as hot.” I pondered her response for a moment, “So, like a shit oven?”

I’m used to my wife buying things that are supposed to make our lives healthier, but I didn’t really appreciate the ‘shit oven’ until I asked if it could make jerky!

Jerky, is meat cut into thin strips, often marinated, and then dried to prevent spoilage. It is super tasty and fairly good for you since it is a great source of protein without much of anything else. The shop bought variety is also very expensive considering what it is and how much you get in a packet.

I already had the dehydrator (you can also use a smoker) so I figured I would give making my own jerky a go and since I’m a WhiskyDad, I planned to marinate it in whisky.

First up would be bacon jerky. Why bacon? Because bacon, of course. I settled on making a spicy bacon jerky with a light and sweet, non-peated whisky. The spiciness would come from Sriracha sauce, store bought since I didn’t have the time or energy to make my own. I have only recently discovered Sriracha sauce (found in the Asian food section of your local supermarket) but this sauce made from Jalapeños, sugar or honey and garlic is freakin’ delicious. Where has this sauce been all my life? It is not what I would call a hot sauce, it's spicy, but it is a near perfect mix of spice, savoury and sweetness.

The whisky of choice would be Starward Wine Cask single malt Australian whisky.

Sounds expensive, but it really isn’t. Difficult to find outside of Australia but it’s one of the best value local whiskies commonly available. I often recommend it as a gateway whisky for anyone new to whisky or new to drinking whisky neat. It’s light and quite sweet so I thought it would pair with the bacon nicely.

I bought some smoked streaky bacon from Costco and prepared the following marinade in a ceramic dish:

90ml of Starward Wine Cask single malt whisky

90ml or 6 x Tablespoons of Sriracha sauce

2 x Tablespoons of Manuka honey (any honey would do or substitute perhaps half as much brown sugar)

3 x Cloves of fresh crushed garlic

I mixed all the ingredients in the dish and added 500g of bacon. Next, I sprinkled salt and pepper over the top, covered the dish with plastic cling wrap and put it in the fridge.

The bacon needs to marinate for three days, being turned in the marinade half way through with some more salt and pepper added.

After three days, I removed the bacon from the marinade and placed it on a chopping board. I sliced the bacon in half and then the widest part in half again so that all the pieces were roughly the same size. Next, I placed the cut pieces on some paper towel and gently removed some of the excess marinate with more paper towel. I didn’t want to remove it all but I also didn’t want it dripping with liquid when I put it in the dehydrator.

Finally, I laid the pieces of bacon onto the dehydrators removable trays making sure the pieces were not touching each other and gave them a last sprinkle of salt and pepper.

I set the dehydrator to 70˚C and the timer to five hours.

Half way though I rotated the shelves and after five hours I removed the jerky and laid it on pieces of paper towel. I placed alternating layers of paper towel, a single layer of jerky, then more paper towel onto a dinner plate. This removed a lot of oil from the surface of the jerky since bacon is much fattier than the meat you would generally use for jerky. Once the jerky had cooled to room temperature, I removed it from the paper towel and placed it in a plastic zip-lock bag for storage in the fridge. Jerky can last for a while, but I wouldn’t keep bacon jerky for as long as you would leaner beef jerky for instance – But let’s face it, bacon jerky is going to be eaten pretty quickly.

So how did it taste?

It tasted awesome! The texture was quite good. You want the jerky to kind of bend and tear. If it snaps, it’s cooked too much. If it bends without tearing or is floppy, it isn’t cooked enough. The Sriracha Starward Bacon Jerky had a savoury whisky flavour at first with a sweetness coming out as you chewed. Lastly, there was a spicy finish that was just the right amount of spice and not too hot; pretty much damn perfect for a first attempt, if you ask me.

It actually reminded me of tasting a whisky (although a bacon flavoured whisky) since the flavour developed as you ate it rather than hit you all at once. 

Next up, I decided to make a more traditional beef jerky. I chose a corned beef silverside, also purchased from Costco. Roughly shaped like a loaf of bread, this cut of meat was already quite lean and having already been cured in a salt brine it would dry quite well in the dehydrator. All I had to do to prepare the meat was to remove the thin layer of fat from one side and cut out a couple of fatty parts before cutting it into roughly one inch thick steaks. You need to cut across the grain for this step. The steaks were about the size and thickness of café-style slices of bread. Next, I placed each steak in a freezer bag and put them in the freezer.

This time the marinade would be soy sauce and smokey whisky based. I chose Compass Box Peat Monster as the whisky. The marinade was a mix of the following:

½ Cup of soy sauce

60ml or 4 x Tablespoons of Peat Monster whisky

2 x Tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce

1 x Teaspoon of garlic powder

1 x Teaspoon of smoky paprika powder

1 x Teaspoon of chilli powder

½ x Teaspoon of ginger powder

½ x Teaspoon of cayenne powder

1 x Tablespoon of Manuka honey

Once partially frozen, I removed the steaks I wanted to use and sliced them (with the grain this time) into 3mm thick strips. This made approximately 600g of beef strips that I then placed into a bowl of the marinade, covered it with plastic and put it in the fridge for three days.

I followed the same dehydrating process for the beef as I did for the bacon; five hours at 70˚C. 

So how did it taste?

The beef turned out great, as good as any packaged jerky you can buy and much cheaper to make yourself. It had a great chewy texture that almost melts in your mouth and while it didn’t have the same evolving flavour like the bacon jerky did, it delivered a nicely balanced savoury hit from first bite to last chew. The whisky flavour was quite subtle so you could probably use more if you wished. I have plenty of meat left over in the freezer so I may experiment with different whiskies for future batches but my first attempt was a hit.

So do yourself a favour and buy a ‘shit oven’ to make yourself some tasty whisky marinated jerky. It is super easy to do and the results were surprisingly amazing.

We fell in love with Tasmania instantly,” says Abbie, “the welcoming people, the rugged landscape and of course the phenomenal food and drink we tasted thanks to the state’s many small-scale producers. 

Our visits to the whisky distilleries in particular, blew us away,” Chris adds, “we were meeting folk with incredible passion, relatively little industry experience, and an infectious Tassie ‘can-do’ attitude. They were approaching the challenge of producing whisky from all angles: we saw all manner of distillery buildings, stills, grains etc being used, and the end results were stunning. We came away from each distillery with a ton of questions which the next distiller would then answer. Though the more we found out, the more we wanted to know. We began to realise that to start a distillery you didn’t necessarily have to have Scottish roots or a £10million bank balance; it could be done on a small scale, on a limited budget, without compromise of flavour. The hands-on production techniques used by these guys, coupled with the limited volumes produced, was yielding some of the best whisky we had ever tasted. 

The seed was sown!” Abbie continues, “we had been whisky fans ever since our first trip to Edinburgh, we both enjoyed a challenge and we loved the thought of working together to craft a delicious spirit for us and others to enjoy. Over the next 18 months while away from home, we undertook training with Dean Jackson and Bill Lark of Redlands and Lark Distillery fame, visited countless other distilleries and tasting events, and wrote up our business plan. We were ready to hit the ground running when we returned to England late 2015. 

Bill Lark and others in the Tasmanian whisky industry taught us a lot,” Chris revealed. “We learnt never to compromise on flavour, to not be afraid to challenge tradition and to go with our gut instinct. We also learnt the importance of provenance. People want a genuine story to get behind, and being able to visit the distillery, meet the makers, see the casks maturing and taste the whisky in the place where it’s made makes that bottle so much more than just a well-designed, well-marketed product. 

Bill Lark gave us lots of sterling advice,” adds Abbie, “especially around the business model and how we could potentially grow. He said to follow our instinct and that’s stuck in my mind ever since. Mark Nicholson, Dean Jackson, Peter Bignell, Casey and Jane Overeem, William McHenry, David MacLennan… All these fine fellows helped shape our distillery, offering at the time (and continuing to do so) fantastic advice and guidance. 

We’ve sourced local barley (some of which we are hoping to have grown in the field next to us), partnered with the country’s last master cooper whose workshop is a 30-minute drive away, and are self-building the distillery. Much like the Tassie distilleries we visited, we want to produce a craft spirit with genuine provenance, in a space that we’ve designed. We’ve also been on a steep learning curve regarding the funding and running of a business. We’ve successfully applied for an innovation grant, a tree-planting grant, and for another to research into how we can reduce and reuse our distillery waste. We’ve also been pitching to investors and bought on a select few to part-fund the build. All of this has been completely new to us, incredibly challenging, all-consuming, but ultimately very rewarding! 

Comradery is something we have been trying to foster amongst the emerging English whisky distilleries,” adds Abbie, “inspired by the Tassie scene back in 2014. We produced an English whisky map to help inform the public of the fledgling industry and have been on a couple of 1000mile road trips around the country in our tiny Renault Clio, purposefully to visit as many of the other distilleries as we can and strike up a friendship. There’s still a few more to visit yet, and I hope our visits will lead to some exciting collaborations. 

We can't wait to welcome other fine fellows into the Cooper King family to share in the exciting times ahead. Our Founders make this whole project worthwhile; they will be the first to reap the rewards when the stills start flowing with our unique English spirit. 

Distillery: Starward New World Whisky

Name: Wine Cask Edition 1

Make: Australian Single Malt

Extra Info: Starward Wine Cask Edition was only this week awarded the coveted World Whiskies Awards - Best Australian Single Malt Whisky, for the second year in a row.

...matured exclusively in ex-Australian red wine barrels sourced from an undisclosed South Australian winery. The nose was sweet and fruity, delicate, with notes of strawberry. The sweetness continued on the palate with flavours of sweet summer berries followed by a medium-length finish that ended in a slightly bitter aftertaste.  

Presentation: I love the label on the bottle, it is simple, clean and modern and so is the nicely shaped bottle that tapers slightly inwards towards a chunky base.

Appearance: Dark gold approaching amber in colour. No age statement, bottled at 41% ABV.

Aroma: Confectionery sweet, strawberries and cream, marshmallow and raspberry coulis. A pleasant nose without any harsh alcohol burn.

Flavour: Light mouthfeel, sweet summer berries.

Finish: Medium length, a fruity aftertaste with the slightest spicy tingle and a mild warming fade.

Yes, absolutely. The Starward Wine Cask Edition is a uniquely Australian whisky, it's like a Christmas Pavlova smothered in berries and cream, enjoyed on the veranda on a balmy summer afternoon. Not only that but it is very forgiving for whisky newcomers. It's sweet, without a harsh alcohol burn and quite easy to drink. It has subtleties for the seasoned connoisseur, but I believe this to be a great introductory whisky for someone looking to try whisky neat for the first time. Uniquely Australian, sweet and easy to drink, I can see why it was judged Australia's best.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to have the nose and palate of a Master Sommelier, however, I am working to train my senses to better identify whisky aromas and flavours. Consider all my whisky 'Impressions' to be a work in progress and I hope to come back to each of them in the future to see if I notice anything different. Most importantly, I'm not just throwing around random aromas, flavours and adjectives for the hell of it; I am trying really hard to critically describe each whisky I taste - WhiskyDad.

Distillery: Belgrove, Tasmania, Australia

Name: Peated Rye Whisky

Make: Tasmania Single-Barrel Peated 100% Rye Whisky

Extra Info: Belgrove sets a benchmark for sustainable craft distilling. Founder Peter Bignell grows his own rye, made his own copper still from scratch, collects rainwater from the roofs of his sheds, heats it with biodiesel that he makes himself from waste oil (which also powers his tractors, forklift and truck), feeds his livestock used whisky mash and recycles waste water for irrigation. Lastly, the whisky is aged on site and hand bottled by Peter. How's that for environmentally responsible farming and Ozzy ingenuity?

ABC Australia Radio Interview (7:20)

It has been two years since the last Belgrove Peated Rye was bottled (I know this because Peter said the file he uses to print the label himself, was last opened on his computer two years ago). I had heard good things about the Peated Rye but had never been able to find a bottle until now. It is aged for a little over two years in a single 100L ex-Overeem malt whisky cask and peated with locally sourced, tea tree swamp peat from Waterhouse on the north-east Tasmanian coast. Peter pops up from time to time at local markets, but you can always buy directly from the Belgrove website if you cannot make it to Tasmania.

Presentation: The small square-profile 500ml bottles with home printed and hand written labels have a delightful craft market look to them and the black wax seal and stamp add an air of elegance. Unfortunately, the wax seal hides a plastic screwtop underneath, rather than a cork stopper, but it is of little concern to most.

Appearance: Naturally light Amber in colour, non-chill filtered and bottled at 52.3% ABV.

Aroma: Candied smoke. Notes of sweet mints and vanilla rise above a restrained smoke. Inhaling at varying distances from the glass help isolate each aroma since it doesn't belch smoke as soon as you pour, like some of the peatier Islay malts. Clove spice presents momentarily, encouraging me to dig for more aromas with my nose in and out of the glass like one of those drinking bird toys. (I think my initial notes were just about bang on the money. I love nosing this whisky, it has so may layers yet very little alcohol burn for such as high ABV.)

Flavour: It is not until you take your first sip, that this whisky fully comes alive. The mouthfeel is deliciously oily and full bodied, urging you to delay swallowing with flavours that seem to develop endlessly. The smoke that appeared a little coy on the nose, blasts forward evoking memories of crunching singed clumps of grass underfoot while walking through a freshly burnt out section of Australian bush. Some fruity sweetness and powdered ash settle on the tongue. Draw in some air to bring out new intense aromas of smouldering bark, rising into your sinus cavity from the gently warming liquid in your mouth. Spices tingle on your taste buds as the whisky warms to body temperature, but it never reaches the pins & needles intensity of some other high-alcohol whiskies. It is smooth, measured and balanced. (I think the cooling menthol comes in a little earlier than the finish and perhaps presents as peppermint.)

Finish: Just when I thought it had given all it had to give, the Belgrove Peated Rye continues to deliver. A smooth, medium to long finish of cooling menthol and fading spice with one last parting puff of smoke leaving behind a slightly bitter aftertaste. What a whisky! (Yep, simply divine. One of my favourites.)

Would I buy it again?

Yes, $200 AUD for 500ml isn't cheap, but it is probably at the lower end of typical Tasmanian craft whisky prices and is fully justified considering the locally sourced ingredients and personal care that goes into every bottle; not to mention the very limited supply of around 150 bottles. The Belgrove Peated Rye is a delicious and truly unique 100% Tasmanian whisky from an innovative sustainable craft distillery and a must try for any peated whisky fan or fan of Australian whisky in general. (I'm sure there is none left by now, but I will be one of the first in line to secure a bottle of the next batch.)

Disclaimer: I do not claim to have the nose and palate of a Master Sommelier, however, I am working to train my senses to better identify whisky aromas and flavours. Consider all my whisky 'Impressions' to be a work in progress and I hope to come back to each of them in the future to see if I notice anything different. Most importantly, I'm not just throwing around random aromas, flavours and adjectives for the hell of it; I am trying really hard to critically describe each whisky I taste - WhiskyDad.

For more details on the Introduction to Distilling course, see my three-part feature here:

Part One, Part Two and Part Three.