Our Mackey Single Malt Whiskies are a testament to Tasmania's pristine environment. Distilled with the island's purest highland waters, they offer an unparalleled taste experienced.

For over half a century barley has been the main cereal grown in Tasmania. We've been honing our skills since early European Settlement. Mackey's barley is grown and malted in Tasmania.

The third important natural ingredient is Yeast. Yeast converts the simple sugars into alcohol during fermentation. 

Barley is soaked in water to start the germination process. The malting barley is grown and turned, tricking the malt into making available carbohydrates which will be turned into simple sugars during the mashing process. Then kilned to stop the germination process.

Milling is necessary to expose the starch in the malt to the actions of the enzymes in the coming mashing process. The malted barley is crushed by a pair of roll mills into fine particles consisting of about 10% flour, 70% grits and 20% husks – this is called ‘grist.’

This process converts the starch and carbohydrates to sugars in the mash tun by mixing the grist and water at 64.5C. The mash is thoroughly stirred, and after one hour, the liquid – known as ‘wort’ – is run off into the fermenter. The wort is pumped through to the fermenter via a heat exchanger to cool it to the desired temperature that suits the yeast – usually between 15-25C. The spent grain still left in the mash tun is disposed of as cattle feed to the local farmer.

Fermentation length: 7 days – much longer than other distilleries. The reason is to allow the flavour compounds to develop during the primary fermentation process by the addition of our yeast.

We find that the longer secondary fermentation phase also allows natural bacteria and aerobic yeasts to further develop and influence the character and flavour profile of our ‘wash.’ The residual yeast is disposed of as feed to local piggeries. 

The fermented wash is preheated via a heat exchanger from the previous day's hot discharging pot ale.

The charge volume is only two-thirds of the wash still capacity to prevent accidental boiling over and froth overflow.

The wash is heated, allowing the vapours to rise where they are condensed into a steady uniform flow called ‘low wines’.

The low wines are distilled again, further purifying the spirit - promoting smooth aromatic flavour compounds in preparedness for further development during the 3rd distillation.

The fores and feints from the previous 2nd distillation are also added.

The spirit still is charged with the 2nd distilled spirit and fores and feints from the previous spirit distillation. The master distiller separates the distillation into three parts:

1) Fores
2) Heart - Middle Cut
3) Feints

The foreshots are the first part of the distillation and contain a high proportion of highly volatile methanol compounds. The distiller will also nose and taste the new make spirit to determine when to ‘cut’ to the heart.

The heart or middle cut is the distillate that will become whisky after cask maturation. The master distiller then determines when the distillate will become feints (not suitable for maturation into whisky). Although the fores and feints are used again in the next spirit distillation, the master distiller will discard the fores and feints from time to time.

Cask selection and the maturation process is a fundamental part of our whisky process.

It not only accounts for a considerable proportion of the production costs but it is a crucial catalyst in the evolution from spirit to whisky.

It is this symbiotic relationship that allows the whisky to develop complexity, character and elegance.

There are numerous variables that effect the maturation process; the type of wine or spirit previously in the oak, the maturation time (different casks will mature at different times), the fill strength, the climatic conditions and the environment all have a role to play.

During the maturation process the spirit expands and contracts into the wood. During this process the spirit extracts 100% of its colour and 70% of its complex aroma and flavour compounds from the oak – by major transformation in its chemical composition. You may have heard of the “angel’s share”- this is when 30-50% of the original cask volume is lost due to evaporation.

Whilst there are hundreds of elements that go into the process of whisky making, patience and passion are the two essential components that go into every bottle of Mackey Single Malt.