When Darren and Glen Stewart and Greg Dower purchased their 18-acre property and established Cauldron Distillery in 2020, they knew they had fertile land but really didn’t know how to make use of it.
“Our first instincts, perhaps naïvely, was to put the energy and time and resources into the vineyard that had been planted five years prior,” head distiller and managing director Darren said.
“The varietals that were planted were all European varietals from a distinctly different environment to Tamborine Mountain.”
They joined forces with the University of Queensland to embark on a research study looking at boutique micro viticulture in a sub-tropical environment with a focus on optimising soil conditions and spraying routines around the weather.
“As we subsequently found we have an acidic soil, so we were putting down conditioners to increase the PH of the soil, looking at both systemic and topical treatments for the main grapevine diseases of powdery and downy mildew,” Darren explained.
“Ultimately after several years we came to the realisation we were fighting nature to grow grape vines in this environment and in our eyes, it was time to pivot and look at growing native species that had a more authentic fit to our journey of being a spirit maker and not a winery.”
That was when Darren brought the idea of planting natives to the University of Queensland.
“Back in our origins we did begin to explore native flavours and found it was both appealing, popular and distinctly unique,” he said.
“However, with the growing popularity of these flavours we discovered it was at times challenging to secure a stable and consistent supply of certain ingredients due the lack of established farms for these plants.”
He said this meant there was no guarantee of consistency in quality which impacted the flavour of the gin.
“It has not been without its own challenges and that’s when we engaged with the university to assist in a product,” Darren added.
“We don’t know whether all these varietals are suited to the sub tropics of Tamborine Mountain and whether our agricultural environment will influence the flavours positively or negatively.
“We selected approximately 10 native botanicals to plant in 13 rows of vines that were removed and do a series of experiments with composts and fertilisers as well as some controls where nothing was added to the soil and then harvesting samples from each and comparing them against samples harvested from offsite.”
Sensorial as well as scientific tests analysing the aromatic compounds will be conducted at the University of Queensland on completion of the study at the end of the year. This will determine which species are best to continue with.
“We have already realised Mountain Pepperberry hasn’t survived, whereas Strawberry Gum and all the Myrtles have done extremely well,” Darren said.
Since planting the trees in September last year, they have just harvested their first product and produced their first gin utilising their home-grown ingredients.
True Blue Gin contains their Strawberry Gum and Aniseed Myrtle as well as finger lime, which in the long-term will also be sourced from the properties farm.
Since the plantings Cauldron has been working on another brand-new unique recipe due for release in July containing six ingredients sourced from the farm.
Darren said ultimately by being able to grow the plants on site, harvest and immediately process them they are maximising the freshness and therefore the key aromatic and flavours while minimising oxidisation.
The plan is to grow the plants to about six to eight foot and put down tarps to prune and collect the leaves for immediate processing.
If the plantings expand, they anticipate employing additional help, but at this stage it is all being managed by their full-time gardener.
They are also committed to a benefit sharing arrangement with First Nations people.
There is no doubt the opportunities for unique Australian gin are promising for Cauldron Distillery on Tamborine Mountain.
