Geographe Distillery

Geographe Distillery Featured

Founded 2008 Gin 2012

Location: Western Junction TAS

“Riding Your Bike”

“Distilling is beautiful. It is a slow, philosophic, and silent occupation, which keeps you busy but gives you time to think…a little like riding a bike”
– Primo Levi, The Periodic Table (1975)

Taken from their website, this Levi quote gives us an insight into the work of the distiller.  At Geographe distilling is also viewed as arriving at the “good stuff” by riding that bike down the right path and avoiding the wrong.

Steve Ryan is the owner, distiller and also the brewer, with able help from his son Jeremy.  He started at winemaking, moved to brewing beer and then arrived at distilling, especially whisky. He loves beer and spends just as much time brewing as making whisky.  He will sample a new brew and often wonders whether to chuck some in the still.

Distilling decreased volume but increases its power; its potentcy. The distiller concentrates the original product and brings certain qualities into focus.  The real trick is to bring the good stuff into focus whilst removing the not so good stuff.  Putting gin aside for a moment, if this is done well, then after a few years spent resting in a ‘good’ cask, you get whisky.  Steve loves whisky.

Like so many distilleries, although interesting and challenging, gin is not where their true affections lie.  With whisky though the problem is that it needs to age in oak for many years.  To pay the bills, gin is very, very handy and also an interesting and challenging spirit to produce consistently.

Methodology

Each botanical is distilled individually in an 800L copper column still, and whether macerated or vapour infused depends upon the best result for each botanical.  A neutral grape alcohol is used.  The different distillations are then blended to a recipe and given a final distillation. Base spirit: Neutral grape alcohol 96.1% abv.

The Beacon gin is a traditional London Dry and apart from the juniper, there are eight botanicals: coriander, liquorice root, star anise, rosemary and cassis, with citrus freshness from lemon, lime and tangerine.

Gins

Distillery Information

Geographe Distillery
Old Coast Road Brewery, Lot 1238 West Break Road
Myalup Western Australia 6220
Australia
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