Killara New Make Spirit

Killara Distillery post-tour tasting, 10 August 2024, whisky #1 Nose: Cereal, white grape juice, gooseberries, apples. A suggestion of malt. Palate: Primarily fruity when neat. Once reduced it gains cereal notes and becomes sweeter with malt emerging. The texture is good. Finish: Medium. Fruity. Killara is a relatively young Tasmanian distillery that was established in 2016 by Kirsty Booth-Lark who is (and I’m sure she’s sick and tired of people pointing this out) the daughter of Bill Lark. That makes it the first Australian distillery to be set up by a second-generation distiller. It’s a smallish distillery (but not quite micro) and they are set up for residential courses and events. They run two stills, both locally made in Tasmania, and both with slightly unusual shapes. I was very pleased that the first dram on our tasting flight was their new make – that's the way things should be done! It’s light and fruity and despite being served to us at Killara’s filling strength (63.4%) it had surprisingly little alcohol nip. The texture was a little flinty when neat, but with reduction to around 40% it gained an excellent creamy mouth-feel and the cereal notes were emphasized. There is a gentle malt extract aroma on the nose and the palate has a similarly malty quality but in both cases it’s restrained and there is no evidence of sulphur or feinty notes. It’s a very clean distillate and my second favourite Australian new make after Cape Byron. It’s not sold as a stand-alone product so if you want to try it you need to visit Tasmania – oh, what a hardship 🙂 “Very Good” : 85/100 (4 stars)