Our STory
Set up by us, Robbie and Emma Gilligan, on the banks of the Derwent River (timtumili minanya) in Dromedary Tasmania. Robbie hails from Glasgow, Scotland and Emma is a home grown Tasmanian. After both working in the Tasmanian distilling industry distilling, creating, selling and managing at Lark, Overeem, Redlands Distillery and Old Kempton Distillery, we decided we wanted to branch out, explore our own distilling style and join our Tasmanian family of distillers who have become such wonderful friends and mentors.
After spending many years searching for a suitable site, as luck would have it, shortly after the birth of our son on a Sunday drive we stumbled across the perfect place. It was then that we finally began our own dream of building the Derwent Distillery.
The Name
Derwent Distillery name comes from one of the first legalised distilleries in Tasmania, originally set up on the banks of the Hobart Rivulet in Gore St, South Hobart in the early 1820’s. On January 22, 1820, the Hobart Town Gazette reported, ‘The foundations of an extensive brewery were laid in the presence of a number of persons by R. W. Loane’. In December of 1823 the building was operating as the ‘Derwent Distillery’.
Unfortunately the distillery was never given the time to shine and in 1838 their doors shut. The closure of the distillery resulted from a change in colonial government policy. Concern over lost revenue caused by local distilling reducing imported spirits, resulted in Lt Gov Franklin introducing legislation to abolish the local industry in favour of brewing.