Page 35 - Food&Drink Magazine Jan-Feb 2019

“A lot of those ideas came from trying to have a real interaction between the distiller and the buyer – even if they never meet, there’s that connection, the handcrafted bottle.” Hartshorn signs and numbers every bottle individually.
“These are one-off bottles that people can buy for $300,” says Hartshorn. “I’m trying to get a real collectors’ following for my brand.”
And packaging doesn’t stop with the bottle. Hartshorn has also created a gift box that uses the farm’s sheep’s
and boutique bottle shops), and you can also order directly from the company’s website.
“I’ve got one distributor going to all states and a second one that’s just dedicated to Tasmania.”
For Hartshorn, the Victorian-based distributor Cerbaco has been a company cheerleader as well as a distribution channel.
“They supported the product really early, before it had won any awards,” says Hartshorn. “They tasted it and knew it was a good-tasting spirit and they liked the concept.”
And garnered awards it has. Among its accolades are both Best Varietal Vodka and World’s Best Vodka from the 2018 World Vodka Awards 2018 – the first time an Australian distiller has taken home that prize. Ryan Hartshorn himself was also named Tasmania’s 2017 Young Innovator of the Year for his achievement of converting the waste by- product whey into vodka.
The next step, says Hartshorn, is looking into exporting to Asia, and he’ll soon be flying to Shanghai and Singapore to meet with a few importers to
try to get an idea about the Asian market. ✷
“ People are only now starting to figure out what sheep’s whey is and respect it, but I knew it was a product that would be unusual to people.”
✷ WASTE REDUCTION
DAIRY PROCESSING
“People are only now starting to figure out what sheep’s whey is and respect it, but I knew it was a product that would be unusual to people,” says Hartshorn. “So, I thought instead of giving it some unusual name and hiding what it’s made from, that I’d embrace that and keep it really simple. The front of the bottle just says it’s sheep’s-whey vodka and where it’s from: Tasmania. That’s it. It also makes it a lot easier when I’m writing 700 bottles a week.”
SPECIAL EDITIONS
The packaging will continue to play a major role in the distillery’s strategy. While Hartshorn aims to keep the spirits range really simple – “I just want to do one vodka and do it really well, and one gin, and do it really well – there will be lots of different special- edition versions of the bottle.
“I’ve already done a red bottle for the Dark MOFO event [Tasmania’s largest contemporary music festival] earlier this year,” says Hartshorn. “And last October, I did a charity bottle, where I worked with an artist who did a full oil painting on the bottle of a whale, and we actually raffled it off and raised about $2000 for Sea Shepherd [a nonprofit conservation organisation].”
Now, Hartshorn plans to do charity bottles every October and has already begun working with another artist on the next one. Additionally, Hartshorn has recently released its Street Arts series, collaborating on bottles with graffiti artists.
wool for padding.
Of course, starting a distillery
from scratch hasn’t been without its challenges. Among the biggest was knowing whether he was on the right path. “I was using stills three years ago that no one else was using in Tasmania,” he says. “Plus, not many distilleries do their own fermentation, so that was different. And with the distillery design, I didn’t know any other people in the distillery world to go to, to ask for help, so a lot of it was me just hoping it was the right way to go. And it seems to have turned out all right.”
SPREADING THE WORD
Currently, Hartshorn’s products are available in every state of Australia (at select Dan Murphy’s
ABOVE: Hartshorn’s farm manager and bottle painter Dillon.
FULL CIRCLE
Turning whey into alcohol is a big waste reducer for Ryan Hartshorn’s family business, Grandvewe Cheeses. Now, with the waste from his distillery, Hartshorn is trying to give reusable by-products to the cheesery.
“All of the botanicals that I use in my gin, once they’ve been put through the still, I’m giving back to the cheesery, and they’re now putting them on the outside of the cheese for the Gin Herbalist cheese,” he says.
Grandvewe will also use the botanicals in a new soap range, and is burning the oak in Hartshorn’s oaked vodka to smoke cheese.
“We’re just trying to go full circle with waste reduction.
“There’s heaps of stuff we’re doing – we’re pretty environmentally focused.”
Ryan Hartshorn at work in the sheep’s whey distillery he founded.
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | January-February 2019 | Food&Drink business | 35