Tassie farmer turns sheep poo and human spit into distilled spirits

How one VERY sustainable farmer is turning smoked sheep poo into whisky and human spit into brandy…

Tasmanian farmer, Peter Bignell understands the social shift towards environmentally conscious Aussies.

Bignell, a sixth generation farmer and owner of the Belgrove Distillery in Kempton, north of Hobart, has a true talent for turning waste into whisky as his interest in sustainable distilling has flourished into a successful business.

“I get surplus waste stuff that's going to be thrown out: alcohol, fruit and juices from other manufacturers that don’t want it. I also get some leftovers from winemakers and turn it into grappa or brandy,” Bignell told SBS. “Or occasionally, some apple cider that’s not quite up to scratch and I turn that into brandy, too.”

While many farmers are looking for ways to minimise and recycle their waste, Bignell has found a concrete and practical way to do so.

Belgrove Distillery was established seven years ago when Bignell had excess rye that he couldn’t sell, so he experimented by turning it into whisky and that was the beginning of his passion for distilling recycled products.

The distillery is one of very few whisky distilleries in the world that grows all its own grain, malts, ferments, distills and barrel ages on site, and is the only bio-diesel powered still in the world.

What's more, it doesn’t feature typical distillery hardware but instead, Bignell makes magic using materials such as old barrels and for his malting and a big rusty commercial tumble dryer for the rye.

“We want to look after the land and just don’t want to waste a thing.

“It’s possibly something I got it from my Scottish heritage and the fact my parents and grandparents came through depressions and never wasted anything. And I just carried on with it – maybe I pushed it bit further than they did in some ways,” Bignell explained.

From turning blemished apricots and pineapple juice into whisky, Bignell has taken his sustainable obsession even further; now making whisky from smoked sheep poo.

“For a smoky whisky I sometimes burn peat off my brother's farm, then when we’re finished with the mash and have extracted all the sugar out of it, I feed it to the sheep. They just use that as food and then poo some of it out.”

Once the poo has dried in the shearing shed, Bignell scrapes it up and burns it to give his smoked whisky its signature flavour.

“It’s got a lovely, sweet smokiness – it’s another year away from being released,” he says. “A lot of poorer nations use burnt animal manure for smoking things – it’s not unique.”

Bignell's office.

Perhaps even more shockingly, Bignell’s latest product, soon to be released for sale, is brandy made from the contents of a wine tasting spittoon.

His ‘inspiration’ came after attending the Rootstock natural wine and food festival in Sydney 18 months ago where he was shocked by the amount of wine and spirits that were being ‘spat out’.

Bignell told SBS that after asking the room who would drink brandy distilled from spit, ‘everyone’s hand went up’. After his nod of approval, he sussessfully collected a colossal 500 litres of err ‘recycled’ wine and took it to a local distillery in Sydney where it’s being prepared for auction this November.

“I don’t know what they’re going to call it – ‘Spit Brandy’ or something," he teased.

You can buy his products online here.