Distillery demonstrates its green and clean credentials with award wins

When Scottish native Robbie Gilligan and his wife, Emma, founded Derwent Distillery in 2016, they aimed to ensure the production process was as off-the-grid as possible.

The distillery recently won a gold medal for its single malt whisky and silver for its Last Sanctuary gin at this year’s Clean + Conscious Awards, which honours the best ethical and sustainable Australian-made products.

Mr Gilligan said they were passionate about distilling alcohol in an environmentally friendly manner at their Dromedary facility, located on the banks of the River Derwent, using rainwater, solar power and packaging spirits in 100 per cent recycled bottles.

“We do realise that we are a very small business, but we’d love to be able to see other businesses get involved as well and do their part for sustainability,” he said.

“The fact that we use rainwater, that has a big part to play in the alcohol – whether it’s a white spirit like a gin or an aged spirit like a whisky – you really do taste the flavour.

“Being in Tasmania, we have such clean air and water, and we love that we can use that every day in our products.”

Derwent Distillery's Last Sanctuary range is also the official gin partner of the Handfish Conservation Project.

“Even down to how we harvest our botanicals, we want to be able to put back what we take out,” Mr Gilligan said.

“And we’ve made sure that anything that we don’t harvest ourselves is done sustainably.

“We always get a lot of feedback from our customers and sustainability is definitely a thing that a lot of people want to see being practised a lot more in what they are purchasing and consuming.”

The distillery’s two main whiskies are brewed in botrytis wine barrels and tawny port casks.

“We aim to use Tasmanian barley along with our rainwater,” Mr Gilligan said.

“We take full advantage of the environment that we have here at the distillery, such as the Bridgewater Jerry, which affects how our barrels interact with the environment and helps create a unique flavour profile from each of our whiskies.”

With its spirits currently only available in Tasmania, Victoria, and NSW, Mr Gilligan said Derwent Distillery hopes to expand into the European market.

“We always talk about Scotland being the biggest and most popular place in the world for whiskies, but Tasmania has definitely got a huge part to play in this.

“When excise licences were first granted in 1822 and 1823, the original Derwent Distillery picked up the second licence - so we were actually licensed to distil before all the Scottish Distilleries.”

Mr Gilligan said the modern Tasmanian whisky industry was continuing to rise.

“When I moved here 14 years ago, there was a handful of distilleries and now we’ve got well over 100.

“Every single one of those distilleries is producing quality spirits that are all very different and unique.

“In terms of how the world sees Tasmania, it can only get better – and rightfully so.”