Things to Drink in Tasmania
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It is traditional in touring brochures to include an article about the destination, usually either about
the culture, or things to see and do. Examples for recent tours have included articles about pancakes and ice
hockey for a trip to Canada, and a biography of William Perry, for whom Camp Perry in the USA was named.
Obviously, the question as to what we should put in an article for our trip didn’t take long to answer;
with a Tasmanian dram having been named the world’s best single malt in 2014, whisky was clearly going to be
the only item on the agenda.
With historical ties to Scotland, it was surely inevitable that there would be a strong affinity within
Match Rifle circles for a drop of whisky after a long day’s shooting (purely for medicinal purposes, of course).
So it has proven; a tasting trip to one of the local distilleries when we shoot at Blair Atholl in Scotland is always
welcome, and the Irish ‘Dram Trophy’ seems to be a popular one to win (surely nothing to do with the fact that
it includes a flask which the previous year’s winner is tasked with re-filling before it is presented).
The original intention for this article was that one or two of the squad members with the most refined
and sensitive palates would congregate for a Tasmanian whisky tasting session, before writing tasting notes and
reviews for your benefit. Unfortunately, Tasmanian whisky is still rather difficult to source on these shores, and
there is not yet a great deal of variety on offer. We therefore decided that, rather than write of our experiences
of polishing off the only two bottles we could get our hands on, we would provide a guide to some of those
distilleries whose offerings we look forward to sampling when in Tasmania (obviously, such tastings will occur
on days off, and when the captain isn’t looking).
When discussing Tasmanian whisky, surely the first distillery to mention has to
be Lark. Opened in Hobart in 1992 by Bill Lark, the Lark distillery was the first to
operate in Tasmania since 1839. That gap of over 150 years was due to the previous
intervention of Lady Jane Franklin, at whose behest her husband, then governor of
the state, made distilling illegal. That law remained in place until Bill Lark decided
that Tasmania had the perfect climate and ingredients for producing whisky, and set
about having the law overturned. Due to his success in doing so, there are now nine
distilleries producing whisky in Tasmania, and that whisky is beginning to gain global
recognition.
At the forefront of that growth in awareness
is Tasmania Distillery, which produ