Originally Published in The Mercury
By Sue Bailey
9 July 2024
A new whisky distillery has massive plans to turbocharge Tasmania’s production and hopes to become the first green hydrogen industrial site in the world. See what’s in store.
Sydney co-founder Hugh Roxburgh said he chose to invest in Tasmania due to the favourable business environment, superior climactic conditions for making and maturing whisky, and the deep local engineering and distilling expertise.
He would not reveal how much the distillery cost but said Greenbanks was a hi-tech manufacturing facility, and the build was “a huge undertaking”.
“Tasmania makes some of the best whisky in the world and has won almost every award there is to win globally, but very little is exported overseas because not enough is made,” Mr Roxburgh said.
“We think Japan is a great case study for the potential for Tasmanian whisky.
“Japanese whisky came from relative obscurity only 20 years ago and is now a major force in global whisky, producing around 100m LALs (litres of pure alcohol), or around a fifth of what Scotland currently produces.
“However, if we look at Tasmania’s production, we estimate it to be well less than 1m
LALs currently.
“And we need scale if we are to take Tasmanian whisky to the world and compete with places like Scotland, Japan and the US.”
