Hooked in to craft a perfect local drop
Tthemercury.com.au
SUBSCRIPTIONS 1300 696 397 he whoosh of a fly-fishing rod echoes as the lure makes tiny ripples across the still, glassy waters of Lake Sorell.
On a brisk, sunny morning in 1989, Bill Lark and his father-in-law, Max, were busy angling trout and enjoying the fresh Tasmanian Highland air. Little more was on their minds than catching dinner for that night’s barbecue, but they were about to spark an idea that would change the Australian spirit industry forever.
While sitting around the barbecue, cooking their catch of the day and sipping on a dram of Scottish single malt, Bill looked around at the serene Tasmanian landscape.
Surrounded by boundless fields of barley, crystal clear waters, and freshwater sphagnum peat, he couldn’t help but ask the question, “Why is no one making whisky in Tasmania?”
That question changed the course of their lives. Soon after, Bill’s wife, Lyn, suggested they give it a go. “So, I started talking to people, and I got swept up in a wave of enthusiasm from people wanting to see if we could make whisky in Tasmania,” says Lark.
Bill did his research. He spoke to Scottish industry experts who had immigrated to Tasmania, and picked up a tiny old still at a local auction.
But there was one problem: Tasmania’s restrictive distilling laws, dating back to the 1800s, made no room for experimental licenses. That could have been the end of it but, not long after, Bill strolled into the office of his local Federal Member of Parliament and told him the problem.
“Luckily, he was a chap that enjoyed an odd dram of whisky,” jokes Lark.
They got on the phone with the Federal Minister for Customs, Science
“With all this enthusiasm from various people in the community, and politicians helping, I decided to apply for a license and set up a small distillery in our home at Kingston with two young kids,” Lark says.
With that, Lark Distillery became the first licenced single malt whisky distillery in Australia since 1839. After making the small Australian island home more than 46 years ago, Tasmania is as much a part of Bill as it is his whisky. “It’s an amazingly wild and spectacularly scenic place,” he says.
It’s slightly isolated from the rest of Australia, but that’s exactly what attracted Bill to the beautiful island state in the first place. “Tasmanians tend to look after each other. If there’s something we can do to help someone in their industry, we do it,” he says. Without the help of the community and easy access to local politicians, Bill thinks Lark Distillery would never have happened.
But the island’s prime whiskymaking environment doesn’t hurt, either. The range of temperature and seasonal variations gives the whisky an unparalleled richness and intensity of flavour.
Each bottle is made using local coldclimate brewing barley and some of the best water in Australia, helping to make a big, rich, and oily single malt. All of those things combined, it’s a whisky trifecta.
As soon as you uncork a bottle of Lark whisky, delicate floral notes pass under the nose before you can even pour a glass. When Bill opens a bottle of his whisky, it conjures up something else: images of those boundless fields of barley that grow all around his home of Hobart.
Over the years, Bill has become known as the pioneer of whiskymaking in Australia, earning him the moniker “the Godfather of Australian Whisky”.
“It was a bit weird at first, but I quite like it now,” Lark admits. “It’s a reflection of the fact that we’ve helped raise a family of people in the whisky industry.”
A family that has shown its appreciation for Bill and his product in more ways than one.
Lark Distillery has racked up an impressive variety of accolades both internationally and at home, including one Bill considers among his proudest moments in the industry.
In 2015, Bill was inducted into the Whisky Hall of Fame, making him the seventh person outside of Scotland and Ireland to be awarded the title.
After all these years of distilling whisky, for Bill, it’s always been a team effort. In true Tasmanian fashion, Bill likes to help other people make whisky, too. “When people ask me for help, I say, ‘I’d be happy to help’. This is not a condition, but an understanding that if somebody comes to you, you would help them, too.”
Today, there are more than 200 distilleries in Australia, and Bill couldn’t be happier about it. “We were the first ones in Australia to have a small craft distillery license. We’ve managed to build, I think, a beautiful industry.”
What began as a simple idea, a vision borne from a fishing trip in the Tasmanian Highlands, became a history-defining moment.
The iconic birth of Australia’s first craft whisky set the benchmark for a rich and exciting industry – a uniquely bold spirit that is second to none.