Accompanying Notes: 12pc Australian Rum Flight (Edition 1.3)

Until the turn of the millennium, the buildings and equipment on a substantial block in Renmark were part of a distillery originally built in 1914. At the time, it was designed to take advantage of the plethora of local fruit produce and turn excess produce into brandy. But after such a long period of existence, things started to go south and in 2002, all fell silent.

Funded by the Aussie family business Bickfords, Twenty Third Street Distillery was re-born from the ashes of this old site in 2016 and has gone on to become one of Australia’s largest distilleries, thanks in part to the large scale equipment they were able to re-use from the previous site. The large 7500L stills in use were also salvaged, albeit from a different location, one of which was responsible for turning out the historically famous ‘Black Bottle Brandy’.

Twenty Third Street’s Signature Rum is made from Australian sugar cane. After fermentation, it’s double distilled and put away to age in first fill ex-bourbon American Oak casks (’first fill’ meaning these casks weren’t filled with anything else since being decanted of their bourbon). After some time it’s cut back to bottling strength and put back in the cask for some additional mellowing.

A ‘brix’ is actually a unit of measurement of sugar content, something the distiller needs to keep an eye on before, during and after fermentation. It‘s fitting that a distillery focused purely on rum is named as such.

Based in Sydney - and apparently the first rum distillery in the city - Brix Distillers was founded by a trio of restaurateurs who share a passion for rum and were previously doing some hobby ‘backyard’ rum production. It‘s a lot more serious now - a 1200L copper still and eight 1000L fermentation tanks are pumping out a variety of cane spirits, with much of it being squirreled away into 200L ex-wine barrels for ageing.

Brix uses molasses from northern QLD as the source of sugar for their fermentation. Fermented over three to four days, the mash is distilled through their hybrid pot/column still, which enables the team to have cane spirit coming off at over 80% abv.

Brix Spiced Rum is made by first blending their Brix White, essentially their cane spirit cut back with filtered water, and Brix Gold, a Caribbean rum aged between five and eight years. The blend is then infused with spices including cinnamon, vanilla, grapefruit, mangoes from QLD, bush currants, macadamia nuts and locally grown lemongrass.

Unfortunately in Jan 2026 Brix was put into administration and as of the time of this revision (Feb 2026), we don't quite know how this chapter ends.

Just a few years ago, WA was not particularly well known for production of spirits. Nowadays, it seems like a new distillery is popping up in the south west every couple of months. Grove Distillery was one of the earlier ones.

Having transformed their establishment from a winery to a distillery, the team at Grove have assembled a wide ranging spirits portfolio spanning absinthe to whisky, not to mention a line of beer as well. Their ‘hot house’ barrel ageing room, basically a big tin shed with large windows, exposes their casks to the brunt of Aussie summer. This results in very quick maturation, as the buildup in internal cask pressure forces the spirit deep into the wood grain.

Head distiller Nick was born in Alaska but spent some time living in the Caribbean, so it isn’t surprising that rum is dear to his heart. The ingredients used to make their cane spirit is a closely guarded secret, but we do know that their Dark Rum is aged in 50L oak barrels, which they use first for maturing their bourbon style whisky. These barrels are quite small and, combined with the hot climate, a significant amount of spirit is lost through evaporation during the five years of maturation. In fact, each barrel only ends up having around 33L of rum at the end!

Surprise surprise: Hoochery Distillery makes hooch! Founded by the late Raymond Dessert III (also known as ‘Spike’) in 1995, the distillery is the oldest operating distillery in WA. Based in the pristine Kimberley with a plentiful source of fresh rainwater and great growing conditions for sugar cane, the distillery got off to a good start. The Ord Sugar Mill built by CSR in the same year provided the distillery with a cheap ongoing source of molasses to kick start their stock of ageing rum.

Sadly, low sugar prices and poor yields forced the mill to close in 2007. With his primary ingredient suddenly gone, Spike shipped over a cane crusher from Colombia and started growing his own cane on the property instead. Now, close to 20 years later, we’re enjoying the fruits of Spike’s labour and vision.

The Ord River Overproof is made from locally grown sugar cane, water and yeast. Distillation occurs batch-by-batch in a pot still and the rum is then left to age in oak casks. The warm and wet climate of the tropics helps to speed up the ageing process. After ageing, the rum is filtered through mahogany charcoal to produce a smooth spirit which is bottled without dilution. It’s picked up plenty of accolades in its time, so Spike must have done something right!

It’s often been asked why Hoochery Distillery is located in such a far flung corner of the nation. Interestingly, although it does seem far flung from more populated areas in Australia, it is actually almost exactly the same distance from the equator as much of the Caribbean, the ancestral home of rum production. This means the climate is comparable, with similar impacts on sugar cane yields and maturation environments.

This is a fascinating and original rum which is entirely different from the Overproof Ord River by Hoochery, which we also feature in this tasting flight, and is a great example of the range of rums in their portfolio.

To make it, cane grown on-site is crushed and fermented before being distilled in a copper pot still. The spirit is aged in large 300 litre ex-wine oak casks for three years then infused with a mixture of traditional spiced rum spices. Finally, and most intriguingly, the rum is blended with a mixture of local mango and Kimberley boab nut pulp to lend a unique tropical taste profile. Prior to bottling, the rum is cut back with harvested rain water.

Based near Byron Bay in northern NSW, Husk Distillers is a paddock to bottle operation that’s leading the charge to define a distinct style of Australian made rum. You may be familiar with Husk Distillery’s first product to market, Ink Gin, which took gin lovers by storm and spurred an entire category of colour changing gins from dozens of distilleries. The truth is, this gin was developed after the distillery had already squirreled away their first barrels full of rum for ageing in 2012.

The runaway success of Ink Gin and their increasing rum stocks meant Husk needed an upgrade from their humble ‘small shed’ beginnings. An ambitious vision to create a destination distillery was temporarily crushed after the 2017 floods sent four meters of water across the farm, but the team persisted and a couple of years later they opened the impressive new site to the public.

Husk Signature rum is the first rum to bear the ‘Australian Cultivated Rum’ mark that Husk has been pioneering from the very start. It’s made from fresh cane juice harvested, fermented, distilled and aged on-site. The cane spirit is aged in ex-wine casks from Penfolds and Henschke. Although each batch of Husk Signature is a vatting of many casks, this one is at least three years old. It’s not chill filtered and there are no added sugar, colours or flavours.

The distillery making this rum under the guise of the Inner Circle brand name is the oldest operating distillery in Australia - Beenleigh Distillery.

The name Beenleigh was actually initially associated with a cane plantation in QLD in the mid 1800s. Ideal weather conditions meant the cane grew well and there was soon a surplus of molasses in the local market. An enterprising ‘mobile distillery’ on a boat known as the SS Walrus did the yards up and down the coast, serving the various plantation owners and providing another source of income. The SS Walrus lost its distilling license after a few years and its still was sold off to a Francis Gooding, who eventually used it to establish the forerunner to Beenleigh Distillery.

Inner Circle as a brand name has been owned by numerous owners over the years. As a result, the production methods have also varied, with Fijian rum being part of the blend for a while. However since 2012, the brand is again under Australian ownership and the spirit is once again 100% locally made. It’s aged five years in 200L ex-Bourbon American oak casks and blended with some ten year old rum just prior to bottling and cut back to navy strength (natural cask strength is closer to 75% abv)!

Located four hours north of Perth, Illegal Tender Rum Company operates in the small town of Dongara, WA. The distillery was founded in 2015 by qualified electrician Codie Palmer who decided to cut short his career in mining and use his skills towards a life-long passion for distilling instead.

Equipped with a 1200L still, Codie’s ambitious project is still a relatively small scale one, with a maximum production capacity of 3000 bottles a month (and only if the stock is aged and ready for bottling).

Bushtucker Spiced is made from dark brown sugar rather than molasses and is fermented and distilled twice in a column still. The spirit is left to age in ex-Shiraz French Oak casks (which were previously used by Vasse Felix in Margaret River) for a month to smooth out the spirit and impart a golden hue. The spirit is then infused with a smattering of Australian native botanicals including kakadu plum, lemon myrtle, quandong, wild rosella and wattleseed. No sugar is added prior to bottling, but a subtle natural sweetness from the botanicals remains.

Nestled on Victoria’s picturesque Mornington Peninsula in Dromana, JimmyRum is the region’s first craft rum distillery and a bold voice in the Australian rum revival.

JimmyRum was founded by James “Jimmy” McPherson, a former marine engineer who spent 17 years at sea before deciding to pursue a long-held fascination with rum. After travelling through North and Central America to study distilling firsthand, he returned to Australia determined to build a proper craft rum distillery — something we had very few of at the time. He set up operations on the Mornington Peninsula, installing a 1500L Italian-made copper still and committing to slow, hands-on production.

Silver is JimmyRum’s foundational expression and the base for all their other rum styles. It’s a lightly matured (or essentially “white”) cane spirit that's built to showcase the distillery’s technique and raw materials: their hybrid still delivers character, the brief stainless-steel rest keeps brightness intact, and the flavour profile remains unmasked by heavy wood influence.

Kimberley Rum Co was founded close to 20 years ago by rural maths teacher Ryan Passmore. He started making his own rum as a hobby, but eventually teamed up with the Kununurra Sugar Mill to create his first commercial bottle of rum, branded as Canefire. It won awards both at home then overseas. After the sugar mill closed, Ryan started to source sugar from around the country instead and a dedicated distillery was set up in the Swan Valley where it still runs today as the Swan Valley Great Northern Distillery.

Canefire No.5 rum is the result of two generations of distilling and know-how. To make it, unrefined sugar, made from sugar cane grown in the Ord River region of WA (which happens to be where Hoochery Distillery is located), is combined with water and yeast before being left to ferment for 40 days. The mixture is then distilled in a stainless steel still and piped into ex-Sherry (and sometimes ex-Shiraz) 225L French Oak casks. The casks are left to age for at least five years. A total of 14 such casks, each with a unique taste and colour profile, are then blended together to create each batch of Canefire rum.

Tin Shed Distilling is one of those places where every step of the spirit making process is hands on and hard work. Hardly any of their process is mechanised and that’s exactly the way they like it. A new 2200L copper pot still and their older 600L still perform most of the magic here, but it hasn’t always been plain sailing.

Tin Shed was initially founded as a side hustle between three mates and was known as Southern Coast Distilling at the time. Their products were delicious and well received, but sadly the partnership fell apart years later. Tin Shed is the reincarnation of that operation with two of the original founders on-board.

Tin Shed’s flagship series of rums, known as Requiem, are individually named after local shipwrecks as a tribute to their sailors. The SS Ferret was a 450 ton steam ship which was stolen from Scotland and subsequently sailed to Australia, right past an off-duty policeman who happened to be reading about news of the theft at the time, resulting in the crew being arrested. It eventually ran aground in 1920 in bad weather.

This is a six-year-old rum distilled from molasses and matured in ex-Tawny American Oak casks. It’s unsweetened and unspiced, and as the distillery says, it’s a ‘rum for grown-ups’.

Situated close to the country town of Yackandandah in VIC, Yack Creek Distillery sits on a plot of bushland with the Yackandandah Creek running through the property right behind the distillery. The creek is home to the Murray Spiny Crayfish, whose silhouette is fittingly forms the distillery’s logo.

Head distiller and founder Jamie runs two stills, a 1000L copper and glass tower still and a 130L stainless steel column still, to craft rum, whisky, gin and vodka (the latter two being more recent additions). A small orchard on-site supplies some botanicals for their products.

The cane spirit for this rum is made in-house from Australian molasses. After a fermentation period of three to four days, the wash is distilled twice then aged in ex-Bourbon American Oak casks for around three years.

The inland location of the distillery, as well as the fact that the casks are stored in a tin shed, results in relatively extreme temperature fluctuations which drive the spirit in and out of the cask wood. During the summer the shed can exceed 60 degrees during the day, but at night this plummets to about 10 degrees. Because of this, over 10% of the spirit in each cask is lost every year to evaporation. Before bottling, the rum is cut back with soft water sourced straight from Yackandandah Creek.