Diemen's Rising is the latest venture from both Dan Woolley's Highwayman Whisky based in tourism hot spot Byron Bay, NSW, and Matt Parkin's AOB (Art of Booze) Distillery, based in Mullumbimby, a much smaller town around 20km north. Serendipitous point number one, Mullumbimby is Woolley's hometown, and Parkin actually lives in the house next door! Hordes of self-titled "influencers" have made me hate the word 'collaboration' since they like to condescendingly use it as a substitute for "advertising" or "paid promotion", but we actually do have two parties working together here, which is rather unusual in the Australian whisky industry. Blended Australian whiskies are few & far between, with most distilleries focussing on their own single malts, while only a couple of companies and/or independent bottlers have looked at blended malts and/or blended whiskies. "House of Lark" with their blended malt and Starward Distillery's two-fold are at the low end of this market, while Heartwood is at the higher end - and deservedly so. With this new Diemen's Rising product, the first release - simply titled 001 - was released on the 9th of January, with the second - 002 - releasing on Monday the 30th of January at a price of $249 AUD. Crucially they're both in 700ml bottles, which is an unusual thing for the smaller Australian producers. As you can see from the photos below, the bottle design is very unique, something like the love child of a gothic tiki mug and a hand grenade!
I've written plenty about Woolley's Highwayman Whisky (he continues to resist my ingenious suggestion of rebranding to "Woolley's Whisky Wonderland") before, but AOB Distillery is probably a new one for even the most devout of Australian whisky followers. That's likely because gin was and is their mainstay like many Australian distilleries, but they've recently taken their first step into the whisky realm. Art of Booze actually pre-dates Highwayman, being founded in Brisbane back in 2017 by mates Matt Parkin and Pete Jaffe. Like Highwayman their initial releases were distilled elsewhere, in this case at Adam's Distillery in Perth, Tasmania (not Western Australia), which is around 2.5-hours north of Hobart. Which brings us to serendipitous point number two; the two whiskies in this blended malt were actually made in the same equipment! The mash tun and pot still that were responsible for the AOB components of this whisky started life at Adam's Distillery, but in 2018 they were sold to Dan Woolley who had them shipped up to Byron Bay's Lord Byron Distillery to start distilling his own spirit for Highwayman. Lord Byron is literally next door to the bond store & cellar door that is known as 'Highwayman HQ', and all Highwayman releases since batch ten have been wholly produced in Dan's mash tun and pot still. So the two malt whiskies in this blended malt were mashed in the same mash tun and distilled in the same pot still while located at two different distilleries over 2000km apart, latterly in NSW but formerly in Tasmania. As for the name, the colonial name for the state of Tasmania was Van Diemen's Land, named after the Governor who sent explorer Abel Tasman on his exploratory journey in the 1600s. So 'Diemen's Rising' refers to the Tasmanian origins for a) the AOB spirit and b) the Highwayman equipment, with the 'Rising' referring to the 2000km trip north to NSW.
This malt whisky has had a ridiculously complex upbringing. The AOB component in this whisky was contract distilled in 2016/2017 at Adam's Distillery in Tasmania, and was matured there in various cask types for a few years before being transported to Mullumbimby NSW. In 2021 this whisky was vatted together and filled into botrytis sweet wine casks. In 2022 those sweet wine casks were again vatted together and combined with two Highwayman ex-apera (Australian sherry) casks of 2-year old peated single malt. But that's not all, folks. This blended / vatted malt was then split into three parts, with some going into mead (basically honey wine) casks, and some going into rum casks, and some going into maple syrup casks (yes, really). The mead and rum cask components were then married together and released as Diemen's Rising 001, while the maple syrup cask component will be released as Diemen's Rising 002 on the 30th of January. Some of this blended malt has been matured in more than four different cask types, with an overall minimum age of over 2-years (being the legal minimum for Australian whisky) and a maximum age of 6-years. Both releases were bottled at 57.8% ABV, and are non-chill filtered and natural colour.
We're obviously going to be looking at big sugar and big cask influence here. Neither a mead cask nor a maple syrup cask would be permitted in Scotch whisky production, and frankly, not being a fan of overly sweet whisky, on paper the cask treatment here does make me a little nervous. While some distilleries are moving away from it now, and a couple of exceptions have kept away from it since day one, on the whole the Australian whisky "style" still leans heavily on wood influence, often to an extreme extent. Not necessarily oak or even barrels mind you, since only "wooden vessels" is specified in our extremely loose whisky regulations, while previous contents are not specified at all. This gives our whisky producers a massive amount of room to play around with casks that have held just about anything, in some cases giving results that many would consider unsavoury (yes, pun intended), particularly compared to what Scotch whisky drinkers expect. Sadly this also means that in many cases barely any attention is given to the wash or the spirit as points of differentiation, particularly from those who don't brew their own wash. But we're getting off topic here, and it doesn't apply to this whisky anyway. Neither Adam's Distillery nor Highwayman / Lord Byron take that shortcut, both brew their own wash on site. Plus it's hard to deny that this cask-reliant approach constitutes a large part of what has made Australian whisky successful, and has probably helped bring new whisky drinkers on-board by appealing to their sweet tooths. That said, both of the tiny teams responsible for Diemen's Rising have plenty of experience under their belt and certainly know what they're doing, so I should know better. Plus the peated Highwayman whisky in these vattings should help to balance out the cask sweetness. Let's find out, shall we?
Diemen's Rising 001, NAS, Blended Malt. 57.8%. Tasmania & NSW, Australia.
Adam's Distillery Tasmanian single malt and peated Highwayman single malt from Byron Bay NSW. Adam's spirit matured in multiple cask types then vatted together into sweet wine casks, then married with peated Highwayman apera casks, then filled into both mead (honey wine) and rum casks. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.
Colour: Dark copper.
Nose: Sweet & rich, but not overly honeyed or overly sweet. Phew! Still has the Adam's spirit DNA to it as well. There's a good amount of wood smoke, even herbal smoke (e.g. burning heather), definitely honey from those mead casks but it's surprisingly measured - thankfully. Black cherry bubble gum, juicy toasted oak, burnt orange peel. Earthy & muddy milk baking chocolate notes behind - there's that Adam's DNA, no amount of casks can seemingly hide it!
Texture: Heavy weight. Rich, spicy, thick & syrupy. Slight heat but very well integrated.
Taste: Spicy, with plenty of drying cinnamon, and whole peppercorns. Stewed stone fruit, roasted peanuts. Smoke is far more subtle here, barely detectable. More of an earthy tobacco note with a touch of that muddy milk baking chocolate.
Finish: Medium length. More bubble gum, with an almost plasticky fruitiness. Juicy oak, earthy muddy notes, and drying spices. The herbal note shows through briefly with more black cherry & roasted peanut.
Score: 3.5 out of 5.
Notes: A little bit mad! Nowhere near as mad as I'd expected, though. Nowhere near as sweet as I'd feared either - like I said, I should've known better, these guys know what they're doing! This is still a very cask-driven whisky though, make no mistake, and there's still plenty of sweetness. But within that realm it's actually quite a balanced whisky. Lovely smoke on the nose as well, which sadly doesn't make it through to the palate - the casks are just too strong for that, or there were just too many of them I suppose. That said, it still has the earthy, muddy, baking chocolate notes that I get in every Adam's whisky I've ever tried - that calling card seems to withstand any type of cask or level of cask influence. Honestly I can't say I'm particularly fond of those notes, but thankfully it's milder here than in some of the other examples I've tried. Despite my doubts given that ridiculously long & complicated list of casks, this is certainly a well-made whisky!
Diemen's Rising 002, NAS, Blended Malt, 57.8%. Tasmania & NSW, Australia.
Same as above but after marrying filled into ex-maple syrup casks. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.
Colour: Dark copper, almost identical, a noticeable haze to this one though.
Nose: Sweet, salty, oaky. Salted honey, plum sauce, that bubble gum note again but it's more tropical here. Thick salty maple syrup. Touch of spearmint around the edges.
Texture: Medium weight. Rich, salty, oaky. Starts out quite dry then sweetens quickly. No heat at all.
Taste: Spicy dry oak initially, then a big whack of chilli salt. Sweetening then with plum sauce, salted honey, and fruit roll-ups / fruit straps. That earthy, muddy, milk baking chocolate note again.
Finish: Medium length. Salty again, slightly greasy / fatty, with a subtle touch of smoke behind that. Bubble gum again with maple syrup, ground black pepper, and drying oak to finish.
Score: 3 out of 5.
Notes: Again, pretty crazy! This one doesn't have the weight or complexity of 001, or that smokiness either. 002 is really quite salty though, which is a surprise. There are definitely parallels between both batches, as you'd expect, and both have those bubble gum notes and also the Adam's muddy/earthy calling card. 002 is certainly cask-forward and there's no doubting the influence of the maple syrup cask, in fact it's much more prominent than the mead & rum casks were in 001. But again it's not as sweet as I'd feared. I'd have to give the win to 001, with it's extra weight and extra complexity, but both releases are anything but boring!
It's great to see another Australian blended malt come onto the market, and it's great to see more Australian distilleries working together rather than against each other, and looking at the bigger picture. We'll keep seeing these from the likes of Heartwood of course, while Fleurieu & Black Gate have teamed up a few times now with great results. But I'd say we'll also see some more low-end blends come in in the near future, particularly with the current & continuing financial pressure that people are under. In a way, that's a sign that the Australian whisky industry is maturing. Which - provided it's done right and without shortcuts or misleading labelling - should be a good thing.
Thanks to Mr. Highwayman, a.k.a. Dan Woolley, for the samples for these reviews!
Cheers!
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