Originally reported by Jung Hyuk-hoon, Nongmin.com (Korea)
There is a product that makes Tasmania, an island located in southern Australia, stand out. It’s whisky. Not many people in Korea know how much interest Tasmanian whisky is receiving in the global liquor market.
In fact, Australia is a country that is quite far from whisky. In the early days of British immigration, some whisky was produced in Australia, but as its existence was later cut off, Australia was a barren place for whisky until recently. Then, since the first whisky distillery was established in Tasmania in 1992, it has increased rapidly, and now there are over 150 whisky distilleries in Tasmania alone. Thanks to Tasmania, Australia is emerging as a dark horse in the global whisky market. To see this with my own eyes, I visited Tasmania’s largest whisky distillery. It is the Greenbanks Distillery
Bridgewater, a small town that appears about 30 minutes north by car from Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. Greenbanks Distillery is located in a quiet place surrounded by farmland.
Even from the outside, the distillery building is quite large. CEO Hugh Roxburgh, who personally welcomed the visitor, first announced the current status of Tasmanian whisky. “The whisky produced here is recognised for its quality to the extent that it produces award-winning works at various world whisky competitions. Nevertheless, we hear many complaints from customers that it is difficult to obtain Tasmanian whisky in the market due to insufficient production. We are receiving a flood of requests for supply from overseas, but we are unable to export due to lack of supplies.” I never expected Tasmanian whisky to be this popular.
All facilities at Greenbanks Distillery have a high automation rate, allowing factory operation with only touch screen operation. This is why it can be operated by two employees even with an annual production capacity of 3 million litres.
CEO Roxburgh said, “Most of the distilleries in Tasmania are small distilleries run by individuals, couples, or friends, so the reality is that everything is insufficient to respond to market demands.” “The establishment of Greenbanks Distillery was a solution to this Tasmanian whisky problem. It was introduced as an effort to solve”. He said “at present, the production of whisky (in net alcohol terms) in Scotland is about 500 million litres a year, comparable to that in the United States, and estimated at about 100 to 200 million litres in Japan”, “by comparison, Tasmanian production is 500,000 litres, only about one in two hundred in Japan”. The Roxburgh CEO said “Tasmanian whisky has a low production volume, but its reputation is so good that several distilleries won awards at the World Whisky Fair just two weeks ago”, adding “It is judged to be the sixth place in the world with the greatest potential for whisky after Scotland, Ireland, the United States, Canada, and Japan. emphasised.
Roxburgh, a CEO from the financial sector, explained his ambitious plan to establish a Greenbanks distillery to investors with this awareness of the problem and succeeded in attracting tens of millions of dollars in investment. As many as 60 investors participated in his plan. The fact that many individual investors, rather than a specific company, are participating as shareholders means that people have high expectations for the Tasmanian whisky that Greenbanks Distillery will produce. Together with two other co-founders, he founded Greenbanks in 2021 and then built an 18-month distillery, which succeeded in producing the first batch last year. Even though it is a new distillery that actually produced whisky for only one year, it is highly anticipated because of its size and state-of-the-art production facilitiese photo
Greenbanks head distiller John Slattery explains the alcohol that was finally distilled. The whisky is completed when this liquor is aged in oak barrels for at least 3 years.
John Slattery, head of distilling, said “Greenbanks’ production volume is 3 million litres per year, which is much more than the production capacity of all other distilleries in Tasmania combined.” “The production facility is also composed of existing state-of-the-art equipment and software, so the automation rate and production efficiency are the highest in the world, enabling continuous production 24 hours a day, 365 days a year”. He said “they also use Greenbanks’ own brand whisky as well as the method of producing under contract” “They are increasing production agency contracts with overseas customers by recently producing whisky ordered by Japanese whisky companies”.
When you enter the distillery, the smell of distilled alcohol is subtle. Large-scale facilities are connected one after another, including a grinder that grinds grains such as barley, a mash tank that saccharifies grains, a fermentation tank that mixes yeast with saccharified grains to make alcohol, and a continuous still that distils fermented beer. Since the distillery was large, it seemed like there would be quite a few employees working there, but that wasn’t the case at all. Because all facilities in the distillery are operated with cutting-edge software, it was possible to operate the distillery using only touch screen operation.
Slattery’s distilling manager said that while touching the touch screen in one corner of the factory “hundreds of valves, switches, and other devices can be operated with on-screen buttons”, “the situation at each stage of the entire process can be checked in detail on a monitor. This allows the distillery to be operated by two employees”.
One of the prides of the distillery is its significant contribution to Tasmania’s economy. This distillery can process 10% of the grains produced in Tasmania. Moreover, by recycling the by-products from making alcohol in distilleries rather than throwing them away, it is reducing the burden on the environment and contributing to farmers. The head of distilling Slattery said “they produce whisky and provide the last remaining water and grain residue to large nearby dairy farms for free” “There is no alcohol here, and it has moisture and nutrients, which has the effect of reducing feed costs for farmers” he said.
This article was written with the support of the Korea Press Promotion Foundation’s ‘2025 Korea-Australia Press Exchange Program’. Read the original article here.
