Distillery
Hellyers Road
Dairy farmers built this place, not distillers. In 1956, families on Australia's remote north-west Tasmanian coast joined together as the Betta Milk Cooperative. Decades later, when dairy deregulation forced a rethink, they turned to single malt whisky instead, founding Hellyers Road in 1997. The distillery still draws on that dairy background today. Its stills are the largest in Australia, bigger even than any currently used in Scotland. That gives the spirit less contact with copper, for a fuller, oilier character. Most of the whisky rests in heavily charred ex-bourbon casks for years in Tasmania's cool, clean climate. The distillery takes its name from Henry Hellyer, a surveyor who carved the Old Surrey Road through the wilderness using only hand tools. Hellyers Road distillery still stands right on the route he built.
