Australia's most exciting new whiskies made by one of the world's most revered distillers

Whisky brought Jim McEwan from Islay to Australia in 2015. Seven years later, Cape Byron’s Eddie Brook has brought him to the new world of Australian whisky and we are all the more fortunate for it.

The two met when Mr McEwan was in Australia for a sell-out speaking tour for Bruchladdiah in 2015, the distillery he had been enlisted to revive in 2001 and which subsequently sold to Rémy Cointreau in 2012 for 58 million pounds (AUD$88.8million), according to Diffords Guide. Investors had paid just for 6.5 million pounds (AUD$17.4 million) for it in 2000*.

Mr Brook was Brand Ambassador for Bruchladdiah at the time and the two gentlemen from opposite sides of the world spent a lot of late nights drinking and talking whisky.

“Eddie was my handler, my travelling companion on the tour,” Mr McEwan told Drinks Trade in Sydney.

“By the end of the tour, I could see the flame. He was hooked. I knew that he was a distiller.

“And what makes a great distiller,” said Mr McEwan, “is a certain degree of madness, a love of alcohol, a big wallet and a lot of patience.”

For someone who wanted to learn how to become a distiller, Mr Brook could not have found a better mentor.

Born on Islay, Mr McEwan has worked with whisky since starting work as a cooper at the age of fifteen. He is the only distiller in the world to win Master Distiller of the Year three times and in 2014 was given a Hall of Fame lifetime achievement award.

Mr McEwan is a stakeholder in the Brook family's Cape Byron Distillery, located on the hillside of Mr Brook’s family property in the Byron Bay hinterland. The Brook family have been regenerating rainforest and growing macadamias since moving there in 1988.

Cape Byron Distillery is not 'smack it in the middle of the rainforest and they will come' type of tourism attraction. It belongs in Byron and is an entrenched part of that community. It is run with sustainability front and centre, with family values at its heart and with a strong sense of community. The distillery achieved B-Corp certification earlier this year. This is no small feat.

“We are not about greenwashing. We believe in sustainability, regeneration and live in a community where we believe that our business should be a force for good,” says Mr Brook.

This is absolutely a family business and speaking with Mr McEwan and Mr Brook together, you get the sense that they are family to each other.

Cape Byron Distillery was built in 2016 and has been selling award winning gins, Brookie’s Gins, ever since. The Australian whisky journey for Mr Brook and Mr McEwan at Cape Byron began in 2019.

But how can whisky be crafted in a climate that is as hot and heavy, and at times oppressive, as Byron, particularly in that hinterland? The climate is nothing like Islay and nothing like Tasmania.

The whisky starts with “an exceptional and consistent distillate” using a wash from their good friends at Stone & Wood - just a six minute drive away.

Mr Brook explains the Cape Byron whisky is laid down in the cellar cut into the hillside and which stays a cool 23 degrees. Yet those maritime influences still come through, bringing flavours of citrus and honey,  in the same way that they do in Islay and Tasmania.

“The seaside, the sea salt is laden in the barrel," says Mr Brook. “And the rainforest is a story, the climate is a part of the story."

Mr McEwan says, “Those barrels, think of them, they are like a lung. The hot air expands and drives into those staves. It then retracts like a breathing lung. The natural oil, that comes from the malted barley. That gives it the mouthfeel, the finishing aroma.”

There are two core SKUs about to be released. They are incredible and deserve the excellent reception they have been garnering as the two men - along with their families - have toured the east coast of Australia.

Mr McEwan and Mr Brook are together again but this time they get to sell their own beautiful liquids:

• Cape Byron ‘The Original’ Australian Single Malt Whisky: The signature expression, aged in American oak ex-bourbon casks. 700ml bottle; ABV 47 per cent; RRP $125.

Mr McEwan: “The colour of a Byron Bay sunset…It’s a beautiful olfactory experience, sweet malt, mellow oak, slow distillation and matured in a stunning location with the rainforest on one side and the ocean on the other.

"It's a beautifully distilled spirit and the finish is long and lingering. No chill filtration, no e150, just passion and pride in abundance."

• Cape Byron Chardonnay Cask Australian Single Malt Whisky: A very limited release of 1550 bottles of the first batch. 700ml bottle; ABV: 47 per cent; RRP: $140

Mr McEwan: A delightful whisky, honest and pure. Without doubt this will bring a twinkle to the eye and salvation to the soul!

Finally, Drinks Trade also got to taste the yet to be released Cape Byron Peated Single Malt. Not too smoky, anodyne nor peaty. More grassy and with a lightness to it. It was a surprise and delight for this whisky novice.

So, whisky lovers of Australia, great thanks must go to the talented Eddie Brook of Byron Bay on this whisky making endeavour, his ambition, his own craftsmanship and for enticing one of the world’s most revered whisky makers away from Islay and into partnership to craft some of the best Australian whiskies we have sampled.

*Figures are seasonally adjusted.