Tamborine Mountain Distillery - Inside Liquor article August/September 2009

In the world of sports your fame is generally reflected by the amount of medals around your neck throughout your career and just like we have our honoured athletes, Australia also has the best in booze.

Tamborine Mountain Distillery would clean up in the tally if producing alcoholic libations had its own Olympics, amongst their champions they count big winners like Moulin Rooz absinthe, Choc n Chilli, Australian Herbal, Macadamia nut,Wattle Toffee and Hibscus Liqueur as some of the brightest stars.

The Ward family has now been making world-recognized artesian vodkas, liqueurs and schnapps for the past 11 years and the awards haven’t stopped coming since, and like every great team the secret is team effort. Starting at front is the quirky and grandiose patriarch, Michael who insures the business keeps churning and in the public eye. This enigmatic, larger than life personality can’t help but infect you with a love that is, too good to be true of his products.

Michael in that way seems more like the coach while the rest of the team put in their own value to make up a true allstar cast. Alla, his wife is the genius that creates the magical essence of TMD, forever experimenting with authentic native fruits, seeds and bush flavours, giving visitors to the distillery an opportunity to savor unique bottlings on a regular basis.

Another pivotal member is daughter Sonya who takes care of the bottling plant and is also learning the time-honoured family tradition of distillation under the watchful eye of the master distiller herself. And although her brother Alex spends most of his time finishing studies and composing music, he somehow always manages some time to help out with the common task of producing award-winning Aussie gold.

The final member of the team is also annoyingly multi-talented, apart from being a gifted graphic artist whose artwork is displayed on several distillery labels, Anne Rutter has incredible people skills that work beautifully at the cellar door.

There really is no room for error when you have two great personalities stationed to meet and greet people as they prepare to experience the best this distillery has to offer.

In the early 90’s when the family arrived to the Gold Coast hinterland they relished in the fact there was an over abundance of fruit trees on the property though it had little use for the general market. As no pesticides were used on the produce and it was allowed to grow naturally it didn’t meet market requirements, so consequently what the family couldn’t consume would simply rot.

With the combination of rich red volcanic soils, fresh Spring Water, the abundant fruit of the Mountain and Alla’s heritage of Russian distillation knowledge they quickly realized the answer.

The extra fruit was harvested, crushed and fermented with those high in natural sugars eventually being developed into distillations that would then become schnapps and fruit brandies in the true Baltic style.

It all started with a small 80-litre copper pot still at first with all their concoctions presented in hand painted bottles but soon they needed a much larger 300-litre still to keep up demand from sales at the cellar door. Due to their increasing success over the past years the Wards have constantly needed to upgrade and expand with a packing area to cater for burgeoning online sales that take this authentically Australian product around the world.

Their most recent addition of a bottling plant, completed in the middle of last year has prepared them for another boost in business after an association with several distributors to take TMD products around the country. What is clear, is as the bar industry are slowly introduced to these specially crafted products the professionals are gravitating towards them for use in modern Australian cocktails.

Now for the first time the bartending fraternity have high quality spirits, liqueurs and schnapps made from local ingredients with truly Australian flavours in mind. After many have attempted using Eucalyptus in drinks it is a comforting thought that on Tamborine Mountain the Eucalyptus vodka is tried and true, ready to be introduced into a variety of mixes.

Not only is the Koala’s favourite food one of the main flavour components used, there is also the intensely citrus lemon myrtle, aniseed myrtle and forest peppermint that is comprised of high altitude Eucalyptus scorched in the summer and frozen in the winter.

Another indigenous flavour commonly confused as Hawaiian is Macadamia nut, yet another of the distillery’s acclaimed products being searched out by keen mixologists in order to elevate the quality and authenticity of their cocktails.

Apart from those that are intrinsic flavours of the land the interest for TMD products is more to do with the expression of true flavours without the need for high sugar content, which many French liqueurs rely on. As liqueurs like Parfait Amor slowly disappear into yesteryear, their Lavender liqueur is gaining plenty of fans for the simple fact of intensity, again perfect in cocktails.

Much like the Ginger liqueur that has the authentic peppery bite. And now after a world wind success in San Fransisco, Brussels and Germany, Wattle Toffee and Hibiscus Liqueur have been an amazing success obtaining gold awards in all three countries.

According to the family they aren’t too concerned whether their hand-crafted products are used in cocktails by bartenders or simply drunk over ice by average people looking for something tasty.

What they are concerned about is that they are able to make artesian products with ingredients that truly reflect our beloved country and are accessed either locally on the mountain or at the very least inside the country.

The fact that we have such a humble brand quietly achieving world acclaim and more medals than Thorpy should be a very comforting thought!

CONSUMER TASTING

We all know the ongoing success Tamborine Mountain Distillery (TMD) has at local and international level when competing at spirit shows. The awards they have collected are second to none. But we thought it would be interesting to conduct a tasting with the everyday man and woman in the street – namely the “consumer”.

So we selected seven interesting flavours from the extensive range produced by TMD and put them to the test with a panel of five willing volunteers.

All five participants were asked to rate the products in the following categories –

Aroma, Taste, Finish, Value for Money and Branding and Packaging. Each category was rated on a scale from 1 – 5, with 5 representing the highest score in each category. When the tasting was completed we tallied and averaged all scores to give a collective rating for each product. All products achieved a rating of around 4/5 for each category but three products really stood out.

They were Choc ‘n’ Chilli, Musk and Wattle Toffee. These three products achieved an unbelievable result of at 4.5/5 or better. Remember these are not show judge sor liquor store retailers but people just like your customers who are looking forsomething new and different, just like your customers.

Below are some of the comments from the participants:

RITA – LABORATORY ASSISTANT:

• I liked the unusual flavours

• The Choc n Chilli and Licorichoc were my favourites

• The decorated bottles were beautiful

JOHN – STUDENT:

• The Musk would make a great drink with lemonade

and vanilla ice cream

• I have never seen such a great range of flavours

MADONNA – NURSE:

• All very smooth compared to many liqueurs I have tried before

• Loved the Musk – looks great and tastes like musk lollies, fantastic

• Bottles are great – would make an incredible gift

• Amazingly they taste exactly as they are labelled

KEN – PROPERTY ASSET MANAGER:

• They are exceptionally smooth

• They taste exactly what they smell like

MARISSA – HEALTH PROFESSIONAL:

• Fantastic products

• Not any fiery after taste

• No burning mouth

• Great aromas

• Smooth tasting

• Everyone should try these products

It just goes to show that Queensland is not only Australia’s best State but it also produces what are arguably the best liqueurs in the world. If you currently don’t stock the TMD products now is the time to add one or all of them to your range .... you won’t be disappointed.