Tasmania is an island state the size of Scotland, sitting at the bottom of the world, separated from the Australian mainland by the Bass Strait. It is remote, self-sufficient, and possessed of a climate that, as it turned out, was almost perfectly suited to making whisky. However, before its modern pioneers revived the Tasmanian whisky industry, no spirits had been distilled in Tasmania for some 150 years.

For that we must go back to the 1820s and 1830s, when the island was still a separate colony known as Van Diemen’s Land. Eight distilleries opened and closed in just 15 years. But after a critical report on the distilling trade was filed to the Legislative Assembly, the subsequent Prohibition Distillation Act banned distilling in the colony from January 1839. The ban lasted less than a decade but had a lasting effect. Then the Distillation Act 1901, a foundational Australian Commonwealth law, formally legalised distillation but only on a 
larger scale: distilleries were required to have a minimum pot still of 2,700 litres. Unintended or not, it was a stifling measure.

Even though distillation on a small scale was illegal, something finally started brewing in Tasmania by the late 1980s. Multiple people, independently, were sensing the same opportunity. One was the late Brian Poke, who founded a distillery in the northwest. It was initially known as Darwin Distillery, later as Franklin Distillery and Small Concern, but currently operates as Cradle Mountain. One of its early claims to fame was the sale of seven casks to independent bottler Cadenhead’s, the last of which was released in 2021 as a 24-year-old whisky.

Then there was the couple who would become the industry’s most visible pioneers: Bill and Lyn Lark. The latter shies away from publicity and “doesn’t get anywhere near the recognition she should,” Bill says. One day Lyn overheard her husband wondering aloud why nobody in Tasmania was making whisky. To which she prompted: “Why don’t we give it a go?” The Distillation Act made it challenging to pursue anything seriously, but Bill approached a sympathetic local MP, who got in touch with the appropriate minister in Canberra, Australia’s capital. Together they decided to amend the legislation to allow Lyn and Bill to apply for a licence for a small still. “It was a very exciting day in 1992 when the customs officers came to our house to issue the first licence in Tasmania since 1839.”

The amended legislation didn’t just free the Larks to pursue their dream. Others who had been quietly nursing similar ambitions began to act on them. Each arrived at whisky via a different route, although the Tasmanian whisky industry was a small world, especially in those early years. Besides the Larks, two of its most influential figures are Patrick Maguire (of Sullivans Cove) and Casey Overeem (of Overeem Whisky). Together the four of them go back decades. Casey, who has Dutch heritage and married a Norwegian, picked up an interest in distillation in the early 1980s. “I met one of my wife’s uncles in Norway who had a micro distillery in a cellar... I became fascinated with this whole concept of distilling and promised myself to eventually make a world-class whisky.”

Casey met Bill later in the decade through a neighbour who was in business with the Larks. “It was very coincidental. Providential, really. We’ve been great friends ever since.” He shelved his plans until his young family no longer relied on him being the breadwinner. Finally, in 2005 he started his own distillery and gave himself 10 years to reach his lofty goals. Now his daughter Jane Sawford, who has been involved from nearly the beginning, is keeping the family legacy alive with her husband Mark.

Whisky was less of a conscious career choice for Patrick Maguire. It just came about for him through Bill and Lyn, he says. They were partners of his in a hotel. When Bill posed the idea for making whisky in Tasmania, Patrick wasn’t so sure initially. “I remember thinking: oh, I don’t know, Bill, you’ve had some good ideas in your day, but this probably isn’t one. He didn’t listen to me, which was just as well.” But little by little he was sucked in, from helping them bottle at their kitchen table to joining Bill as a full-time distiller at Tasmania Distillery in the late 1990s, which made Sullivans Cove at the time. He ended up becoming its head distiller and eventually its steward and co-owner through near-bankruptcy and revival. He currently manages Maguire & Co, a new distillery and independent bottler.

Lark Distillery, Overeem Whisky, and Sullivans Cove became three of the four founding members of the Tasmanian Whisky and Spirits Association, which was established in 2007. The fourth was Hellyers Road — as significant a player but an outlier both geographically and from a business perspective. Its parent company had been a dairy cooperative since 1957, founded by farming families in Tasmania’s remote northwest coast. It’s a four-hour drive from Hobart, the area where Lark, Overeem, and Sullivans Cove all had their beginning. By 1997, the cooperative began exploring new ventures. A conversation with Brian Poke pointed them towards whisky.

The distillery was designed almost entirely in-house. Local engineers built the equipment just down the road. The result included a unique mash tun, an enormous drum mounted on its side. The wash still holds 60,000 litres, nearly 40 times the capacity of the stills Casey Overeem started with in his 35-square-metre shed. “It fits the founders’ independent, or bloody-minded maybe, nature,” says current CEO Derek Charge. The northwest’s climate is also strikingly different from the rest of Tasmania. Where Hobart sits in a rain shadow with wide temperature swings, Hellyers Road is buffered by the Southern Ocean and sits nearby Tasmania’s temperate rainforest. It makes for a slower, more patient maturation.

The pioneers had licences, stills and conviction, but not necessarily a playbook. Tasmanian whisky would have to be invented through experimentation, instinct, and a willingness to embrace what the island had to offer. Bill sourced wash from Cascade Brewery, developed a post-malt peat-smoking process with Tasmanian peat, and repurposed Australian port casks into quarter casks. This smaller cask type became a signature of Tasmanian whisky, adopted by many that followed. As did the use of brewing barley, such as Franklin, an older variety, and Planet. First out of necessity, then out of choice. Bill calls it a golden thread running through Tasmanian whiskies. And Patrick says, “Our maltster was very beer-centric, so we took what we could get. And that was fair enough.” Now that the industry has grown the distillers have more of a say, but they still often consciously choose to use a beer brewing barley. “We find it works well for us. Maybe a little less efficient, but we’re not so worried about that. We worry more about the flavour and texture.”

That shared identity extended beyond the liquid. In a young industry with tiny production volumes and an uncertain market, the distilleries acted more like collaborators than competitors. They shared knowledge, travelled together to find export markets, and opened their doors to anyone who came asking. “There were so many people coming and seeing my father’s shed,” remembers Jane Sawford. “It gave them the realisation that they could do this too. Obviously, dad gave them so much great advice too. It really inspired them to start.” To this day, the camaraderie between distillers like Hellyers Road, Lark, Sullivans Cove, and Overeem remains strong. “We help each other and we’ve also helped many, many other distilleries get underway,” says Casey.

The Tasmanian whisky industry, almost by accident, developed a culture to match its distinctive regional identity. For a long time, though, it was largely a local story. The first sign of bigger things to come materialised in 2009, when Lark entered its centenary release, Cask LD100, into the World Whiskies Awards. It won in the category Best Other Single Malt Whisky (no age). “Against a whole lot of other world whiskies,” Bill says, “we won best single malt, which was really exciting for us and a huge turning point.” Patrick arrived at the distillery that morning to find cars queued around the block. “All of a sudden we had orders from around the world. It catapulted Sullivans Cove into the stratosphere. It was major for that brand, and I suppose for Tasmanian whisky as well. I know the others did well out of it too, which was fantastic.”

Tasmania now has north of 80 distilleries that produce whisky. The founding generation is beginning to hand things over. Jane Sawford spent years quietly fighting to reclaim her father’s brand after Casey sold it in 2014, eventually getting the Overeem name back in 2020. “We never really let it go,” she says. Patrick Maguire, who could have disappeared into retirement after his time with Sullivans Cove, found he couldn’t stay away. He’s building Maguire & Co with everything he learned, deliberately oversizing with an eye on the future and growing his own barley. “All the mistakes we made before, I feel we can do a much better job this time. We know what problems to look for.” And Bill and Lyn’s daughter, Kristy Lark-Booth, has become a key figure in the Australian spirits industry, founding both Killara Distillery and the Australian Women in Distilling Association.

Derek Charge categorises the current distilleries of Tasmania into two types. Not big or small, but the ones that are interested in exporting outside the island and the ones that aren’t. The latter mostly sell direct to consumer, online or “cellar door”. Their whisky might only be available at select bars and bottle shops with which they have direct relationships. “Those two groups really both support each other very effectively. The ones that aren’t exporting won’t have people coming to Tasmania specifically for whisky, unless people get that awareness [of our category] from having drunk it in bars and bought it in stores elsewhere. Then when people visit, they get an enormous benefit from just the richness of going around the state to lots of distilleries where they can meet 
the makers.”

It is a kind of legacy that was never the plan. What the pioneers built is not just an industry, but a way of doing things. Patient, collaborative, rooted in place. Bill Lark once described the feeling of looking back over 30-something years and seeing an industry that he and Lyn witnessed the birth of. An industry that supports 2,300 jobs and contributes more than 300 million Australian dollars to the Tasmanian economy. Lark Distillery alone employs around 80 people. “Those young people are earning a living from something we started at our kitchen table. That’s something really nice to reflect on.” 

The spirit of Tasmanian whisky is perhaps best captured by Derek Charge, who can’t bring himself to see his fellow distillers as rivals. “I’m almost equally happy,” he says, “if someone buys a bottle of Lark or Sullivans Cove or Overeem. Basically I just want people to drink Tassie whisky.” Thirty years ago, almost nobody did. Now the world is starting to catch up.