"The concept of Australian whisky is very much proved. The concept of Tasmanian whisky is proved, and it's now the time to think to get to the next level and to solidify our presence globally."

– Heather Tillott, Distillery Manager of Sullivans Cove Distillery, Tasmania 

 

 

There are “Old World” whiskies that have earned their reputation slowly, bottle by bottle, decade after decade. Then there are the rare few that arrive as a pleasant surprise, the kind that forces the whisky world to recalibrate its sense of where else great whisky can come from. Sullivans Cove belongs to the latter. For many drinkers outside Australia, it was the name that abruptly made Tasmania impossible to ignore as a place that will one day produce distinctive single malt with genuine global authority.

The turning point was in 2014, when Sullivans Cove won World’s Best Single Malt at the World Whiskies Awards. If you grew up learning whisky through Scotland’s regions or with Japanese single malts, an Australian single malt taking the top prize was the kind of headline that would surprise you. Plenty of whisky lovers, including myself, chased down that headline and since then, the chase did not stop. Sullivans Cove's win placed the distillery, and by extension Australian whisky, firmly on the world stage.

And yet, the real story since 2014 has not been a straightforward victory lap. The distillery faced the long process of living up to a reputation while staying honest about what whisky maturation is: slow and indifferent to hype. A craft producer that catches lighting in a bottle faces a demand that accelerates faster than supply can reasonably follow. For years, Sullivans Cove has had more people wanting the whisky than the distillery could possibly make available, and that pressure creates a strange kind of tension. No amount of attention can compress the years in cask without changing what ends up in the glass.

Thus, Sullivans Cove has spent the past few years commissioning major renovations and bringing substantial production capabilities into a new phase, including bringing mashing, fermentation and wash-making in-house and topped off with an immersive new visitor at a revamped cellar door. When the conversation is about a craft brand with cult status, this feels like a long-overdue scale up that could relieve creative constraints and give a team room to explore, rather than simply running flat-out to keep up with demand. The A$14 million distillery overhaul was officially completed late 2024.

 

Heather leading the opening ceremony of the upgraded Sullivans Cove Distillery along with musicians from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (Source: Man of Many)

 

Then late last year Sullivans Cove announced the launch of its historic set of 25 year old single malts, which we had the special opportunity to experience in Singapore with CEO Andy Gaunt. 

This is the context in which I spoke with Heather Tillott, previously Head Distiller and now Distillery Manager at Sullivans Cove. Heather has been at the helm of Sullivans Cove's whisky production for close to a decade. Before whisky, so the story goes, Heather was drawn to wine. She had trained as a winemaker, worked in a local boutique winery, once describing herself as “hellbent” on that path. Then, during a bike ride, she fatefully wandered into Sullivans Cove, tasted the whisky, and felt what she called the moment when “the universe stop[ped]”.

 

 

In our conversation, Heather repeatedly returned to the idea of being a custodian. Her humility is striking, especially because it is paired with an extremely granular command of process. She is candid about the risks involved in bringing new processes into the mix, describing it as both exciting and dangerous, because the opportunity to expand capability comes with the risk of losing the distillery’s “inherited DNA”. She speaks about engineering decisions in terms of flavour outcomes, and about the importance of working on the distillery’s “weird and unique little practices”.

With that, we're proud to share with you our full conversation with Heather Tillott, Distillery Manager at Sullivans Cove Whisky!

"It's restraint, it's patience. I feel strongly aligned with that. It's not forcing the liquid or the flavour profile in a certain direction. It's actually collaboratively working with the barley, with each of the different process points where you're creating flavour."

[88 Bamboo]: It’s been quite the banner years for the entire crew at Sullivans Cove, with both the celebration and marking of the distillery’s 30^th anniversary in 2024, with massive upgrades to the distillery’s Cambridge site, a more immersive visitor experience, and also very fascinatingly bringing now in-house the mashing, fermentation and wash-making process.

Could you tell us more about how the refurbishments have been? What were some of the specific considerations made, as well as the challenges and the high points along the way? 

What was the thinking behind bringing washmaking back on-site, and how has this influenced or shaped the spirit / whiskies that have been produced since?

[Heather Tillott]: It's been a really big few years. To be honest, upgrading the site and our equipment was part of our strategic planning from, I'm going to say, 2017, 2018 onwards. We knew that we needed to do something and to be honest, the initial trigger was just realising we've got one still going on 30 years old, about 25 years old, and the copper elements, they wear out, so we needed to give her a nip tuck, we needed to give her a bit of love. And our site that we're on, perfectly fine, but we needed to do some site upgrades just to bring it up to spec and add in some auxiliary equipment just to make our lives a little bit easier.

 

 

So we knew we needed to do it and we thought, well, let's look at the strategic plan over the 10-plus years and think, well, we've got one very small still and that's beautiful. But if we're running seven days a week, if we can add a bit more scale capability and not have to operate every single day, that's a major win. It's a win for our staff. It's a win for our ability to be creative because when you've got, you know, a very small scale like output cap out, it means that basically everything that you do is just getting as making as much as you can and you end up being a bit constrained with time and budget and scheduling.

So to take that pressure off and that constraint off has been wonderful because it's opened up the capability for us to be creative, to look at really just the playing we haven't been able to play. That's super fun, really exciting. And of course we have distinct spirit styles that we've developed over the years, but to be able to play around the edges of that is really fun. Fantastic.

 

 

And of course that was a big consideration in the design of site upgrades. And when you're thinking about bringing some new stills into the mix, it's both exciting and dangerous. So it's the same, you know, risk and opportunity are the same side, two sides of the same coin.

Because of course there's the risk that you'll lose that notorious inherited DNA, but there's this opportunity that you've got to make it even more you. And so we had to ride that line very carefully and we've had, we had great process engineering partners throughout that really believed in that. With us, it wasn't just a project to make it the most efficient distillery on the planet, to get the most scale. It's none of that. The key of the project was to understand what our DNA is and to keep it while giving us the capability to play around the edges of it and have some fun.

"[O]ur ferments are at least seven days and then on top of that, there's up to another week of resting for lactic acid bacteria work."

So really undertaking to understand what our DNA is, honing in on what those spirit styles are like, down to really granular detail and then saying, okay, well, how do we engineer in some of our weird and unique little practices that we've been doing for 20-something years, so that we can not even just protect, but add unique DNA, but play to its strengths. And of course, already we've had a notorious spirit style, very well recognised and highly awarded and all of the rest, our processes behind it, they're not industry standard.

Yes, we're doing the same as everyone else in that we're fermenting and distilling and ageing in cask, but our ferments are at least seven days and then on top of that, there's up to another week of resting for lactic acid bacteria work. Our still shape is really unique – in fact, I couldn't tell you a whisky distillery that's using a Charentais alembic still. It was designed for brandy – to make whisky. And so there's certain aspects that we thought, all right, we've really got to understand what's going on in this so we can protect it and play it with strength. So it was a fascinating process doing that design.

 

 

That's concept and design work, super exciting because bringing wash brewing in-house is a major coming of age. It's a huge rite of passage for us as a distillery and a brand. We've had the amazing pleasure of working very closely with local Tasmanian brewers for the best part of 30 years. And because of that has shaped our wash style really uniquely. And so it's very much paying homage to these beautiful relationships we've forged and this product that we've created together over many years, embracing that and then taking it on ourselves in this next stage of our journey. And it's part of growth, it's an exciting part of growth.

And I guess with it there are practical benefits, certainly. If the brewery's down the road or on the other side of town? Yeah, sure, we can touch base about what's going on in the ferments and tweaking and whatnot, but when it's in the same building, that's different. You can do real-time tweaking and just playing. So pretty big logistical wins all around. I'm excited about that because it really is that coming of age.

"[H]ow do we engineer in some of our weird and unique little practices that we've been doing for 20-something years, so that we can not even just protect, but add unique DNA, but play to its strengths?"

[88B]: Sullivans Cove has this philosophy of continuing to focus and emphasise on what makes it so uniquely distinctive. You’ve alluded to quite often as to this “Sullivans Cove essence” that has to always be at the core of its spirits, because of its people, the Tasmanian terroir, and so forth.

As someone who spends more time than anyone else on this, could you define for us what is to your mind the essence of Sullivans Cove whisky?

[Heather Tillott]: Well, of course, if you look at our new make spirit, you'll always see that briny, salty note, there's a citrusy note often around the pith, the white stuff on the inside of a mandarin or an orange peel, that pithy rindy type flavour. There's an anise or fennelly note and there's a gaminess, it's often like almost an umami or a truffle sort of note. Really, really fascinating. And of those elements in the different spirit style might be weighted certain directions, but they're all there, they're always present.

That's that real unique Sullivans Cove DNA of the spirit and of course, matured in various cask types again, that shape-shifts and manifests in a little different way, but the core is still there.

But that's flavour. To be honest, the thing that's really got to be up there for me is the body and texture. It's so important. If it doesn’t have a really full body and quite a thick, creamy texture that flows across the palate, it's not Sullivans Cove. It's really critical to how we think about and look at spirits and whiskies before we release them – it has to be there. And that thinking is part of the creation all the way back in the ferment.

 

 

How can we play to that strength and maximise that throughout the flavour creation and whisky creation process?

But certainly there is also, partly because of age, layers of complexity to Sullivans Cove that are really critical to our product. It's not a two-dimensional whisky and that's not a judgmental statement to say we're better than two-dimensional whisky. It's just not who we are. There's layers of complexity, there's a lot going on. You can sit there and lose yourself in the whisky. So there's obviously that core flavour DNA. Every distillery has a distillery character, or whatever you want to call it – that body and texture and that layered whisky.

"Because you're using full size casks, you have to wait a long time. You've really got to wait and be patient and exercise restraint."

[88B]: One of the most distinct aspects about Sullivans Cove is the use of a Charentais Alembic pot still (named “Myrtle”) which is most notably designed for Cognac or brandy-making – and Sullivans Cove of course makes whisky with it.

Did Sullivans Cove originally start with a brandy still as something more versatile because in the early days it wasn’t quite certain what sort of spirit it would be making? 

[Heather Tillott]: It's interesting. Actually, our founder, a gentleman named Robert, knew exactly what he wanted to do from the very beginning. He wanted to make single malt whisky. The way it came about was that he was an entrepreneurial gentleman, a businessman, real estate developer, etc. He was on a trade mission in Japan back in the early 1990s. And he saw Japanese businessmen drinking single malt whisky, Japanese single malt whisky with local seafood, in particular abalone, the shellfish. And he realised that this was a cultural thing, it was a brilliant food pair. It was local produce from the sea and local whiskey like single malt whiskey. And he just had a light bulb moment and realised, hang on, Tasmania has amazing seafood. Really great seafood.

And we also have a lot of world class breweries. Back then there was the two main ones, James Boag Brewery in the north and Cascade Brewery in the south. And Rob thought, well, he had actually been thinking about making a brewery and then he realised, no, let's go the next step and make a whisky distillery and create whisky and serve it with seafood, match made in heaven. It'll be brilliant.

 

Sullivans Cove Distillery uniquely uses a traditional French Brandy-type still which gives its whiskies a singular profile.

 

And so that's how we started. He didn't know much about whisky creation or distilling or any of the like. He learned as he went. He had seen in a very old book – there's a gorgeous photo of a very old Charentais alembic still, a cognac still, from the 1830s or something. And he thought, that's beautiful, I want one of them.

So he had a local boilermaker and coppersmith actually create a replica of a very old Charentais still for him to use to make whisky. And for him, he didn't care that it was a cognac still or a brandy still and he was going to make whisky. He had this vision in his mind. And I think that there's a lesson there that I think back and take a lesson, because we can so often get stuck in our creative worlds within a bubble of, well, I make whisky and this is how I do it.

I think that innovation is a funny term that gets thrown around and we think that it has to be new, but it's just a new way of thinking about something that has the greatest innovative breakthroughs in history. Or you do something in a different context, you do something you're used to in a different context and you have a shift.

And I think that Rob and the origins of Sullivans Cove is a great example of that, because he came to making single malt whisky, which requires the use of a pot still rather than a column still. And he thought, I'm going to change it up, I'm going to use a Charentais alembic, because that's what I want to do. Because they're beautiful. And he always wanted to make single malt whisky. So that's how we came to exist.

"[B]ringing wash brewing in-house is a major coming of age. It's a huge rite of passage for us as a distillery and a brand."

[88B]: We understand that the reality of the early days was that it was very much a cobbling together of various ideas and therefore equipment, very much with a can-do attitude of figuring things out on the go and finding out what worked.

Now with Sullivans Cove being in a very different position 30 years on, what are your thoughts on whether there should be a “rethinking” to evolve or move the whisky in any particular direction given the experience and the clarity that comes with it?

[Heather Tillott]: We're 30, 31 years this year and of course there's always a degree of figuring things out along the way. So you start doing it one way and then you think, all right, that worked and that was a bit weird, so I'll go here. And then you keep doing that, right?

So that continues to this day. Every manufacturing business does the same in the creative space, but certainly there's elements of the very early production that they did for half a dozen years, then didn't do for 15 years, and we now do again because we recognise that it made such a brilliant, unique spirit style. So we've kind of reimagined it in today's climate with the ingredients we've got now, the people, our minds, the place, and what we've got access to.

But certainly something that hasn't changed has been the use of full size casks in maturation. And it really has set us apart from many producers along that journey. Because you're using full size casks, you have to wait a long time. You've really got to wait and be patient and exercise restraint.

And so that is something that's really just so Sullivans Cove – that restraint and patience that hasn't changed. It's amazing.

 

As the distillery does not adhere to strict timelines on when their casks should be bottled, each batch is only bottled when tasted and ready. Like a birth certificate, each bottle comes with a tag that tells you the Barrel No., Bottle No., Abv and the dates it was filled and decanted. "TD" here simply refers to "Tasmanian Distillery"! 

 

At certain times in history there might be certain barrels that are available and so there might be a slightly more predominant flavour profile in certain areas of the spirit that comes through as you look back through the bond store, and I don't see that as a bad thing. I think that's an amazing thing. It tells a story. It's very human because at the end of the day, it's the humans creating flavour and it reflects a time and a place and a window into the history, but it also gives us a really broad colour palette, to use a painting term, to play with.

We can say there's incredible breadth of flavour available in our bond store and for us to learn from. So I really like that – people experimented 20 years ago and 30 years ago with cut points, with different yeasts, with different barrels. Some were charred, some were toasted. It's amazing because we can learn from that and play ourselves and it's fabulous.

 

[88B]: I can’t help but notice that you often bring in the concept of ‘terroir’ when it comes to Sullivans Cove’s whiskies – we’re guessing this comes from your background of having started out as a budding winemaker?

[Heather Tillott]: You guessed it!

"If it doesn’t have a really full body and quite a thick, creamy texture that flows across the palate, it's not Sullivans Cove."

[88B]: As someone who’s seen both categories, do you think there are aspects of winemaking, wine marketing and branding, or the broader wine trade, that you believe whisky producers or the whisky trade could learn from, and vice versa?

[Heather Tillott]: I probably have bias to the wine approach and mentality and that's purely because that was my first experience of beverage creation or even to go further, place-based produce creation. I think that concept in and of itself – wine around the world has really nailed that. Wine is a product of place and it tells a wonderful story of place and a snapshot in time and the people there and incredible. So that's just how my mind has been shaped in this space and that's just transferred to whisky. But certainly I think that approach of being place focused is something that spirits could learn to embrace more. And we're seeing it happening.

I guess there's just the language of terroir that the wine industry uses a lot more. But certainly I really do believe in the terroir aspect of spirit. If you're using local produce, and particularly if you're utilising low intervention production methods, as at Sullivans Cove, we don't chill filter. And so all of those fatty acid compounds which are flavour, aroma, texture – they're retained in the liquid and that, of course, beautiful body as well, but they're retained in the liquid and those compounds originate in the barley. And if the barley is locally grown, then that's a conversation about place, that's a conversation about terroir. And particularly if you're retaining those compounds in the liquid, you're not stripping them out through filtration methods – that's a conversation about place and terroir.

 

Gorgeous Tasmania makes for gorgeous Tasmanian whisky. (Image Source: Time Out)

 

And that excites me. Sullivans Cove Whisky is a whisky of place. We're not taking anything out that represents the place or the barley that's grown in the place and that unique DNA, and that's really fantastic. And of course, wine has owned that concept forever, so there's a lot we can learn there.

I think the philosophy of winemaking, that the "best winemakers get out of the way" approach, I love that. It's restraint, it's patience. I feel strongly aligned with that. It's not forcing the liquid or the flavour profile in a certain direction. It's actually collaboratively working with the barley, with each of the different process points where you're creating flavour and saying, "Well, what's there?"

What's inherently there? What's the identity of this barley, of what happens when we add this yeast and this temperature range and that we call our own in our spirit style. And what are the characters coming out? Listening, not forcing – it's listening and working with. It's a collaborative approach and sometimes you've just got to get out of the way. You've got to put your ego at the door and say, I'm creating with these elements and with my people here and with the equipment we've got in this season.

So there's a humility there. And some of the greatest winemakers in the world all have it. It's all very evident. And they're looking for balance and harmony in the product, texture, integration of all elements. The narrative from the very beginning, the wafts that start going through your nose, how it moves through the palate and through the finish.

"[T]he 'best winemakers get out of the way' approach, I love that. It's restraint, it's patience. I feel strongly aligned with that."

[88B]: We know that beyond the romantic nature of falling in love with whisky, the reality is that whiskymaking is lots of hard work.

What was your “Aha!” moment in the practice of whiskymaking, where you thought to yourself “I love what I’m doing, I want to spend many more years doing this”, “this is where I’m supposed to be”?

[Heather Tillott]: Yeah, the biggest “aha” moment I had was when I had moved to Tasmania and was doing vineyard work and I had heard local people talking about whisky in an epicurean sense, as in really locally focused produce that people were interested in the detail and they loved that it was local and they could support local farmers and learn about the production methods and really get behind it. I thought, oh, I need to learn about this, this is interesting. So I went to a couple of distilleries and Sullivans Cove was the second that I went to. I visited one Friday afternoon and did a tasting and my mind was blown. I just fell in love with the flavour, the texture. And I saw at the back of the distillery the still Myrtle and I just thought, "That's beautiful." That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and that's what I want to do. So a week later I had a full time job at Sullivans Cove and I've been there ever since.

The biggest challenge was adjusting my palate to spirits from wine, because I had no experience of spirits before that. It was a very new thing. Wine was what my palate was used to. And so adjusting that kind of analytical version of your palate, you put that hat on when your palate just gets real analytical and you're trying to understand what's happened and how to interpret it, to make decisions. Transferring that from wine to spirits was tricky because you've got the heat of the alcohol. You can tell the same sort of things have been going on, but just on this level-ten version. So getting used to that took a little minute.

I think the mindset as well. With wine you're often thinking in 12-month cycles, whereas with whisky, it's decades. So one half of your mind there's the last 20 years and then on the other half of your mind is the next 20 years. And it's not just a 12-month cycle. You might have half a century in your mind at any one time of works in progress, which is mental to think about.

"Australia is a wonderful wine-producing nation... If we're starting to think about developing that Australian, collective kind of Australian style of whisky, it makes a lot of sense to be utilising wine casks in there."

[88B]: Comparing your experience of previously being in a winery before getting into working at a distillery, were there any surprises as to how similar or how different the experience was?

[Heather Tillott]: To be honest, the thing that to this day keeps on becoming apparent to me is how similar they are. Of course there's the obvious differences, but we take something from the earth, we process it, we ferment it – and just those similarities alone, there's a lot on your palate you pick up that you can get what's happened, certain markers you can understand just to tell the story and unpick it. And then of course, ageing in barrels, ageing in oak. Of course a spirit's going to behave a bit differently than wine in a barrel, but ultimately similar things are happening. So if you have an understanding of what's gone on in a barrel throughout the wine maturation – very transferable. So I'm always amazed at how similar they are.

And certainly the concepts of the creative philosophies are completely interchangeable.

 

[88B]: To that end, you’ve previously said that you joined Sullivans Cove at a time when it had already become known for its particular style, and as such you saw your role as being well versed with the distillery’s essence and then articulating it in every bottle moving forward since you took over the helm – “the big picture” as you call it, as opposed to coming in with as you say “an ego” and thus rocking the boat for the sake of it and risk undoing all that heritage.

Getting into the nuance between these two poles, how then do you balance preserving Sullivans Cove’s essence whilst also bringing it forward under your helm without being held captive to its history?

[Heather Tillott]: That's a really good question. That's something I think about a lot. In fact it's my job to think about that, because there is history, and there's a notorious spirit style and I could come in with an ego and say, awesome, I can have a bit of fun, what do I want to do? But when you're working for a flavour company, a brand, a liquid DNA, you must respect that. And so I must bow to the fact that there is a very unique DNA in the spirit and seek to understand that. Really seek to understand that.

So what is the DNA? What's the landscape? What are the farthest corners and what are the little rolling hills in that landscape of our DNA? Where have we really explored and where else is there to explore? And I think that playing and being creative with where we can take these flavours and what does it mean for our spirit in this barrel or if we finish here or if we change the ferment there or whatever it is, blending, it's really exciting. As long as that core remains and as long as the respect and honour for that core DNA and that history remains and ensure that DNA runs through, it's going to be fine. I'm not about to guide the team to just start completely doing whatever.

"There's those drinks that stop you. Egly-Ouriet Champagne, Hampden Estate Rum. Those two particularly just changed my thinking about flavour. Absolute flavour explosions. What Hampden does with dunder is such an interesting piece."

[88B]: Do you keep an eye on consumer preferences which then also plays a role in shaping the whisky’s profile?

[Heather Tillott]: To a degree… trends are tricky in whisky. Typically when you're thinking about trends in the whisky space, it's that post-maturation piece. It's particularly around the blending or finishing space. We absolutely keep an eye on the industry and what's happening. Certainly not at all in the sense that, oh, we saw Dr Rachel Barrie did a particular kind of cask finish or something with Glendronach. We have to go do the same. It's not chasing, whisky is not an arms race. Like how art is not an arms race about, they did this, therefore we have to do it as well. It's exciting to see what is being created in flavour.

I love seeing what other people are doing because it's inspiring, not because you feel you have to do it because they did it, but because it's so interesting to see one distillery's DNA expressed and manifested through another cask type or a finish or a blend. So it's more of an inspiration piece than trying to chase trends.

 

[88B]: It would stand to reason that the whiskies made under your watch will naturally reflect your fingerprint as part of the distillery’s ongoing story. How would your fingerprints be reflected, looking back? 

[Heather Tillott]: Probably a heavier use of wine casks. And the breadth of wine casks – not just your Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but really a whole lot of other interesting varietals. And our Double Cask is a great example. Significant portion of the Double Cask is wine.

Australia is a wonderful wine-producing nation. And so it makes sense for us to be using Australian wine casks. Makes a lot of sense. If we're starting to think about developing that Australian, collective kind of Australian style of whisky, it makes a lot of sense to be utilising wine casks in there.

We changed our wood procurement policy to have a significant portion of wine cask in there as well, along with all the other fortifieds and bourbon and beer casks.

"[W]e also do dilution in barrel during the maturation... we actually add water very slowly at all points. We're dripping it in during maturation at certain points." 

[88B]: Over your 9 years, you’ve also reflected that your perspective on whiskymaking as being both an art and a science has evolved over time – first having seen it as two separate virtues, to subsequently starting to see the lines between the two fade with them co-existing.

And yet, we also know that today’s whiskymaking has become increasingly high tech, with the ability to test samples, run chemical analysis, and better understand the chemical compounds that make up this otherwise ethereal and magical concept of flavour, and then running parallel to that is you gaining more experience each year that you’ve served as Distillery Manager.

Between the technological innovations and your growing intuition and experience, is whiskymaking now more art or more science?

[Heather Tillott]: That is the age-old question! It's both. Undoubtedly scientific processes are happening, chemical processes are happening, biological processes are happening. More and more I see science as the how and the tool. Analytics – amazing. Yeast, what it does – amazing. And what happens in a cask is scientific things going on, molecules and all that. It's incredible. So there's the kind of nuts and bolts, scientific tools and processes, but there's the je ne sais quoi, there's that thing that happens, the magic and that human touch. That's the art.

We could use these tools, these processes, and not have humans involved. It just wouldn't be the same. Because it is a matter of interpretation and doing. It's a matter of a human using their mind, using their senses. A few humans together doing the same, nosing a liquid that's been in a barrel for three years or 20 years, or a ferment, and interpreting it through their own lens in that time. And then they work with it, they make decisions, they make practical decisions and make creative decisions and everything in between day after day. There are thousands of these little decisions that get made throughout the entire whisky-making process. And humans make them.

And that is art. Whether you're trying to express a certain flavour, a concept or a place or yourself or the brand, you are doing such a fundamental human thing which is creating or probably technically we're fashioning things. We're not creating anything out of nothing. We're fashioning things. We're taking what we've got and fashioning it. It's the most human thing. It's beautiful. And that is art.

Science is everywhere. Science is in our bodies, science is in the air, science makes cars go – it's everywhere. And it's the how. We have amazing technology, scientific technology as a tool to help us make these decisions and these creative little decisions along the way. A long answer to your question – it's both. But more and more I think it's this freaky intuition, arty thing. It's deeply human.

 

[88B]: Could you tell us more about how Sullivans Cove’s spirit / whisky evolves with time in the barrel? Are there distinct phases it goes through for several years before then developing into something else in a next phase and so on, and what would the whisky be like at each of these phases up until being bottled?

[Heather Tillott]: There's the breadth of age and what happens throughout age, but there's also the seasonality influence as well. Through winter, there's more of those sweeter, sugary sort of compounds coming out, the cellulose coming out of the casks and some of those heat-degraded, sweeter vanilla sort of things coming out in the cooler temperatures. And in summer, you get a lot of heavy oak, a lot more tannin content, and some of the volatiles are more active because it's warmer. So that happens every year.

But throughout the age, the younger spirits are exactly what you'd expect, quite spirity. In the first few years, you get a very strong influx of oak extraction.

So typically, you see with spirits as they're maturing, not just Sullivans Cove, you see really strong spirit elements and really strong oak elements, and they're just imbalanced, they're not integrated. It's really jarring on the palate because there's this unaged spirit, an immature spirit, and a whole lot of oak extraction, and they just fall out fighting, but they're both very present. And so the young spirit's very intense for that reason. But that being said, you do see that body and texture from day one that's always there.

In the middle years, depending on the cask and the spirit, of course, this could be anywhere from 3 or 4 through to 15. It's kind of those strong elements trying to find balance. And so you see these varying degrees of balance and imbalance.

And often, as they get into the teen years, for our spirit styles that are designed for long age, you can start to see lots of things happening, lots of flavours, lots of aromas, and they just start to become a bit more harmonised. There's a very distinct turning point and certainly we cut a few different spirit styles and one of them is designed specifically for very long-term ageing and it's unique. And sometimes this can take 15, 16 years. Of course, for many of those years you think, good heavens, that's not very nice. And that's okay – it's by design. Whereas yet our other spirit styles, by then you would have significant balance, brilliantly balanced.

What we see in our spirits around the 20-plus year mark is really phenomenal. You've obviously got many layers of complexity, but you start seeing this beautiful, like a forest floor. It's like beautiful decay. And if we're in the cognac realm, we might start talking about rancio. It's this beautiful thing that starts with a nutty, earthy forest floor and then it just becomes intense. You might get almost funky tropical notes coming through. It's just stunning. So the complexity at that point just takes on a whole other level.

"Our society these days, East and West – we're stuck in busyness. And that's the enemy of creativity. You've got to be able to step back, have a practice of mindfulness somehow, whether that's just being quiet – I do qigong regularly. I meditate."

[88B]: You’ve mentioned doing a lot of work with wine casks. Where there any peculiarities of wine cask aging that you won’t see with other barrels?

[Heather Tillott]: Certainly. A lot of it comes down to how you work with the barrel. Once it's been disgorged at the winery, it needs to be kept fresh. Of course, the wine not having a very high alcohol content, it turns volatile very quickly and you can end up with some disgusting vinegary VA (volatile acidity) mess in the barrel if you're not careful – very quickly in summer, particularly at vintage time, if you've got barrels being disgorged just before that or just after, you're in trouble if you're not caring for them and treating them straight away.

Typically in the whisky industry, we use bourbon casks which have a very strong flavour, a strong particular flavour, big sweet, vanillary flavour in bourbon casks, or fortified casks.

 

An easy identifier for Sullivans Cove's special cask editions is to look out for a diagonal banner on the bottle label.

 

So sherry, Australian tawny, and they're very intense flavour profiles. A Chardonnay cask is much more gentle. And so then you think, all right, well maybe I'll do a lighter shave or change my toast and charring profile to really bring them forward without destroying them. And so I think it's very much the nuance of how you treat the cask. That's a very strong component when working with wine casks.

 

[88B]: Could you share with us some aspects of whiskymaking that few people might know of, and by extension what’s something about Sullivans Cove that very few people know about?

[Heather Tillott]: Well, one thing that most people don't know is typically in whisky, the whisky will be matured in the barrel and then at that point of readiness, whether it's going to a blend or to a single cask, the whisky barrel is decanted and then begins the process of vatting and dilution as it makes its journey towards a bottle. Now we do that as well – we will add water very slowly to the whisky to reduce it to the chosen bottling strength after the point of decanting the barrel.

 

The temperate Tasmanian climate allows whiskies to age for longer and deeper, concentrating its flavours over a shorter period of time. (Image Source: Sullivans Cove Distillery)

 

But we also do dilution in barrel during the maturation. It's not often done because it's quite time consuming and it's not practical to add water to a barrel in a bond store. It's easy to do it once it's decanted in a batch or something, but we actually add water very slowly at all points. We're dripping it in during maturation at certain points. Not every cask gets it. We look at it diagnostically, like a doctor would, to help reduce over-oaking, which is something that any whisky can be prone to under certain circumstances, but in the Australian climate, particularly when it's dry, over-oaking can be fast-tracked compared to Scotch, for example, with the cooler, more humid climate. So it's a wonderful technique and it's something that I came across in the world of cognac – it really amplifies the texture as well. So it's an interesting piece.

It's not something that generally is done in the world of whisky, but we've been doing it for a number of years and it's a wonderful tool to have in the toolbox. It's a very gentle process.

While it's not a tool that whisky makers typically use, spirit producers outside of whisky certainly do. And so that's something that I like to do, and we like to do at Sullivans Cove – we have an approach that we can apply lessons from other disciplines to our own. We don't have to be stuck in "this is how you make whisky and that's it." We can be creative about how we do it. Of course, staying within the definitions of whisky. We're not trying to be cheeky with the definitions of single malt whisky.

 

Sullivans Cove has at one point also produced some highly sought-after Tasmanian brandy.

 

It's very much just how can we approach what we do with different techniques that other spirit producers like cognac or rum or brandy producers have utilised for many years to increase the quality or the experience in the mouthfeel or the aromatic build or lengthen our maturation without it getting over-oaked in the Australian dry climate. So it's certainly not a standard whisky thing, but it's a very well-known technique in old cognac circles.

 

[88B]: Now moving on to Sullivans Cove’s whisky range – it’s well known that the distillery keeps a very tight lineup of flagship whiskies, primarily focused on single casks of American Oak and French Oak, ex-Tawny and ex-Apera, as well as refills, with also the Double Cask that’s a blend of whiskies aged in both American and French oak – and then more recently you’ve begun releasing whiskies that have emphasised their higher age statements. At the same time, you’ve also mentioned that you believe Australia needs more blended whisky which will create more longevity and better economics.

Are there plans then for Sullivans Cove to add more blends to the core range? Adjacent to that, would Sullivans Cove look towards producing Single Grain expressions? And more broadly is there a desire to expand that core range? Perhaps a larger vatting for a more scalable blend?

[Heather Tillott]: We're at an interesting inflection point on our journey, given we've got the capability to produce more than we ever have. And so one does ask the necessary questions about ultimately looking at your core DNA. Who are we? What is our brand, what is our liquid? Product architecture is an offshoot of this in the context of strategic planning for the future. So we're doing that. You do that every year. But we're at a particular inflection point in the journey when we ask those questions – do we add another product that's more scalable, the greater volume, could we do a blend? Absolutely.

 

The trio of Sullivans Cove's iconic whiskies that form the core range. (L - R) American Oak Cask, French Oak Cask, Double Cask.

 

We've asked ourselves these questions, and we don't have plans to do so at this point, not ruling it out, but our focus and our heart and soul is single malt whisky. That's who we are. So while we could do any and all of the above, it might not be for us to do so. It's still an ongoing discussion and question that we ask ourselves. But I certainly would love to see some dedicated large-scale grain distilleries, some brilliant blends coming out of Australia. I think that would be so great. It's so great for everyone. But in the meantime, we're producing a bit more Double Cask, which is really exciting. We'd love to get Double Cask on more people's lips around the world.

 

[88B]: You’ve once highlighted that unlike Scotch or Bourbon, Australian whiskies aren’t as well-defined in terms of regulations, which then provides a wider berth for experimentation and innovation. We also understand you’ve got quite a couple of interesting whiskies of different styles and maturations that speak to that innovation you’ve vouched for that Sullivans Cove will be releasing soon. We know you’ve got the Pilot Cask program that’s available at the Cellar Door, and you’ve teased even a French White Wine Cask, and have talked about how previously you hadn’t found a local timber that works.

Could you tell us more about the innovation that goes on at Sullivans Cove and how the distillery takes advantage of this wider berth?

[Heather Tillott]: There are local timbers. Australia has many wonderful timbers, native, but very resinous and not very good for holding liquid long term, or coopering them into barrel shapes. We've played with some native timbers, certainly for, you know, like full term maturation. No dice, no luck. Yet, amazing in the blending space. Really, really fantastic in the blending space. So excited for what that's going to yield. Really excited.

I think that wider berth in the regulations, as you say, it's predominant in the maturation space. I think the Scotch whisky definition says it must be oak of a certain volume or below. In Australia, it must be two years in a wooden vessel.

It could be a timber, a set of drawers if you want. It doesn't give any clear definition of what that vessel is or what kind of timber it is. So there's a lot of range, room for movement in this space, which is cool. But certainly oak does remain the best species. The old oak barrel, can't beat it.

But there are no Australian timbers that are really well suited to the storage of spirit or wine at all, particularly not long-term. There's still a lot of flavour to be gained and some experimenting to be done there. We've tried full-term maturation in timbers like Jarrah. Hasn't worked. It tastes like pea and ham soup in a bushfire. Not great. But blending that liquid is brilliant.

And certainly as far as cask types, we've got quite an interesting collection of casks in our bond store. Many wine varietals, unique fortified varietals, some beer casks – absolutely open to experimenting. And I think it's really important to be creative and just to try things not as your core range. You need to keep your business and your profile sorted or else future you is going to dislike present you and other people are going to be really frustrated with previous years. It's not good for brand continuity and the sustainability of the brand DNA, the liquid DNA long term. So there's a strong focus. We keep the core brand, the core liquid on point.

And around the edges, within a certain percentage or proportion of our overall output each year we play. So there's interesting casks in there. So it's really important to be creative and experiment. That's what leads to innovation. It's important to explore that realm of flavour.

 

[88B]: You’ve mentioned previously that you’re also a big fan of brandies, Cognacs, Armagnac and Calvados, and of course Sullivans Cove also produces really great brandy, which you’ve mentioned that the distillery will be releasing a blended brandy soon.

Tell us more about how the Sullivans Cove sees its brandy making, and could you share with us what plans you have for the distillery’s brandy. Could we see an increased focus there? And are there any plans for a crossover where some of Sullivans Cove’s whiskies are aged in its own ex-Brandy casks?

[Heather Tillott]: We haven't made brandy for about 15 years. It was a moment in time, hugely successful. And we love the product and of course we have refilled those barrels in our bond store with new make spirit. So that's exciting for the future in and of itself.

 

Coal River Valley (Source: Brian Dullaghan) 

Certainly with the increased capacity and capability we've got now, it's only a matter of time. Watch this space – we'd love to make some local brandy. Where our distillery is situated in Hobart, Tasmania, is in a wine region, the Coal River Valley wine region. So we have amazing winemakers and fantastic grapes grown in this region. So watch this space!

 

[88B]: Getting to a wider industry level, Sullivans Cove is obviously credited with having put Tasmania (and also Australia) on the whisky map when it won World’s Best Single Malt in 2014. Since then the scene has exploded with many more folks looking to be a part of that burgeoning story – yet in the mid 2010’s, it could not have been more different. There were certainly much fewer distilleries and even trained distillers.

With many more young distillers coming aboard, many of whom bring with them both academic and practical experiences gained from even staging at distilleries around the world, are there any trends or shifts that you’ve observed coming from this new generation of distillers?

[Heather Tillott]: Certainly. I think there's much more of an interest and an experimental mindset. There's more openness to trying new things and not just doing things because we've always done it this way. People are really excited and want to try different yeasts, playing with different barrel types and just tweaking the details and getting curious. There's a lot of passion. In fact, sometimes too much, which is a beautiful thing. "Yes, we can do everything. We can do all these cool things. Why not ask the questions? Why don't we do this? Why can't we? Let's!" But we've got to keep track of core business first.

So it's important and it's a great mindset. The passion that comes through is incredible. That's great, but you've got to keep it in the context of we've got a business to run, we've got a big legacy to keep, we've got future people to keep happy in 10 years’ time and to make sure that our core business and our core DNA and liquid profile and the bond store profile succeed.

It's a wonderful thing. I think there's a lot of openness to the concept of terroir and what that means. “What does it mean to make whisky where I am? What does it mean to make whisky in Taiwan? What does it mean to make whisky in Turkey or Georgia or wherever – every corner of the earth?” And that's a really cool place to be. It's so interesting. And with this creativity, bubbles of whisky making popping up around the world, everyone sees it slightly differently. Different regions have different histories and experiences and interpret things in different ways. It's a human art element.

 

 

And so we're all much more open now. For instance – over in Jamaica, they do this thing in their ferment and it produces these kind of flavours. Well, I'm not producing a spirit based on molasses or sugarcane juice. I'm using malt. But what if we applied the same thinking? What would happen to our wash and what would the resultant spirit be like? There's a lot more cross-pollination going on and that's exciting.

 

[88B]: With Australian whisky in broad having grown splendidly over the past 10 years, you’ve mentioned that the industry is starting to really flesh out the spectrum of whisky styles being made, branding, as well as business models, with a fast-growing mid-segment that’s also bringing quality up as well.

What do you believe is needed for Australian distilling to get to the next level and do you see parallels in the development of the Australian whisky scene with other countries’ whiskymaking trajectory?

What do you see as nevertheless the biggest hurdle that the industry has to overcome? What aspects excite or intimidate you, and more broadly, what trends do you think we should be keeping a closer eye on?

[Heather Tillott]: The next piece in my mind is scale and volume for the Australian industry. I think there is a natural part of the growth in any industry and it's part of the trajectory that the concept of Australian whisky is very much proved. The concept of Tasmanian whisky is proved, and it's now the time to think to get to the next level and to solidify our presence globally, even just domestically. We're talking about sustainability of an industry. We need volume and I'm not saying we need to lose our soul and just create volume. It's not that at all. It's very much just to solidify our presence in the industry. That's as simple as that.

So nuts and bolts, that's the next piece, and to ensure that's done really well is to also understand the DNA and the individual distilleries for regions in Australia within each state, to understand who are we, what's our flavour profile, what's unique about us collectively. And go from there. Use that DNA as we scale so that we don't lose ourselves.

I get really excited about the use of wine casks. As I said, Australia is a wine-producing nation of global repute. We have these amazing casks at our disposal. And the Australian wine industry has got a global name for itself. We have regions in Australia that people all around the world can nose a wine and say that's Clare Valley Riesling, Hunter Valley Shiraz or whatever. And that's the benchmark – we could get to the point where people have got access to these whiskies from New South Wales, Victoria, Australia, Tasmania. And say, "That is clearly, distinctively a Tasmanian whisky." I think wine casks can certainly have a large part to play in that.

 

[88B]: You’ve also mentioned that as the industry grows, that everyone needs to support, celebrate and be kind to each other. What do you think players or folks in the industry can do more of?

[Heather Tillott]: I think one of the other pieces of growth is moving from a grassroots industry where you're figuring everything out together in a local community sort of vibe where people grow and then they have their own businesses and then you're a bit protective and by all means, you've got to protect your business and be real about this, and then competition arises. You must be smart – you're not sharing your IP with your neighbour. But there's a lot that's not IP that we can be working together more on. And I think particularly around that compliance space, how to scale business in general. Human resources, people and culture, teamwork, leadership, management, general operations management, general manufacturing pieces, quality control.

None of that's IP, that's just operating a business well in the world. Safety, work health and safety, regulatory compliance – that's not IP. And I think that typically in Tasmania and in Australia, many distilleries began as tiny mum and dad operations. And it's very community-focused and that is beautiful. But in any industry, this is not even whisky, what you see is that getting fractured as growth happens because everyone's trying to protect and defend their own sort of thing. And you lose that ability.

I think it would be really great if we can retain that throughout because there's so much of what we do that's not IP. We're talking about liquid DNA and creativity – there's IP there. One must be very careful, of course, but just growing as businesses together into communities and regions in a nation of whisky producers – we are so young in our journey in the modern Australian distilling era that we can still do that and that sets us apart from, say, Scotland. They were doing that a couple hundred years ago. We're still a long way back and I think when people see bottles on shelves or big awards of a global level, I forget that. We're still at a very early stage relative to the bulk of whisky producers in the world.

 

[88B]: You’ve mentioned that it's important to not just be in the distillery all day, and to ensure that you’re interacting and engaging with the world and being inspired and broadening the way you think about the world. Could you share with us some of your favourite activities and places?

[Heather Tillott]: I get a lot of inspiration from nature, a huge amount. Tasmania is a beautiful place. Natural environment here is absolutely stunning. You've got to hire a car and drive up the east coast – go to the Triabunna fish and chips van (“The Fish Van”). Fantastic. There are some incredible food creatives here, some incredible chefs. The guys at Agrarian Kitchen out at New Norfolk – amazing. Bruny Island Cheese Co, amazing. Bruny Island itself is absolutely stunning. Chef Analiese Gregory, who made Tasmania home – she's doing amazing stuff in the food creative space.

 

(Source: The Mercury)

If you're in Hobart and you want to see the produce and get an idea of how we live – a lot of Tasmanians grow vegetables at home, even just herbs and stuff. Everyone's got something in their backyard, growing fruit trees. Go to the Sunday farmers market in Hobart. It's the best. You have an amazing breakfast. There's so many great food vans, flavours from around the world. Pick up some local vegetables, fruit, all sorts of products. It's amazing. That's one of my favourite things.

 

Farm Gate Market at Hobart, Tasmania (Source: Cris Crerar)

 

You've got to make time for what matters. You've got to make time for being still and staring into space and looking at beautiful things and being in nature and you have to make time for those things because if you don't, your brain doesn't have the ability to be creative.

You just get stuck in busyness. We're terrible like that. Our society these days, East and West – we're stuck in busyness. And that's the enemy of creativity. You've got to be able to step back, have a practice of mindfulness somehow, whether that's just being quiet – I do qigong regularly. I meditate – transcendental meditation is really important. And I can't imagine being able to let my mind just wander and think of crazy things – "What if we did this?" – without that. Everyone's got a different thing – that's it for me. But it's really important that we slow down and make time.

 

[88B]: Last but not least, if you could name several expressions or labels that tell us the story of Heather Tillott – they can be any drink, not limited to whiskies – what would they be?

[Heather Tillott]: Hampden Estate – the Classic Overproof Hampden Estate Rum would have to be up there. That was one of my first mind blowing spirits experiences. Unbelievable. Ferrand Cognac – amazing. Any really small-scale mezcal – phenomenal.

 

 

Gamay of any description – I'm just obsessed. The grape itself is a really fantastic grape and it's fascinating to see how you can have the nouveau style through to quite deep, rich expressions. Incredible.

Egly-Ouriet Champagne – the grower Champagne space is really fascinating.

 

 

There's those drinks that stop you. Egly-Ouriet Champagne, Hampden Estate Rum. Those two particularly just changed my thinking about flavour. Absolute flavour explosions. What Hampden does with dunder is such an interesting piece.

 

@CharsiuCharlie