How we started

Milton Distillery began as an idea in a UQ engineering practical in 2015: a good spirit should not need years in a barrel or cost the earth to make.

In 2018 the idea became The Malecón, a small bar on Castlemaine Street, Milton, with the still in the front window, two hundred metres from where the first Milton Distillery stood. Covid turned the still to hand sanitiser, the 2022 flood took the bar and the barrels, and in 2024 production moved to 99 Jane Street, West End, inside By Artisans. The dates are below. The long version, in Alex’s words, is in the Distiller’s Journal.

2015 to today

Hover over or tap a year on the line for the photos from that moment. On a phone, the same moments run down the page.

Still sketch in the notebook, August 20182015An idea at UQA chemical engineering practical, an old glass distillation column, and the reading that showed this was how the world’s spirits had always been made. The next few years went on experiments in a garage: ways to mature spirit without waiting years for a barrel, and still designs.1 of 920152018May 2018Late 2018Jan 2019201920202022Today2015An idea at UQA chemical engineering practical, an old glass distillation column, and the reading that showed this was how the world’s spirits had always been made. The next few years went on experiments in a garage: ways to mature spirit without waiting years for a barrel, and still designs.Still sketch in the notebook, August 20182018The Kettle and Tin, then the MalecónAfter close to a hundred investor meetings, a coffee with Asa Boardman at the Kettle and Tin in Paddington in 2017: he read three pages of the fifty-page plan, pushed it aside and asked whether Alex would put the hours in. Over the next few months they built The Malecón, a small bar on Castlemaine Street, Milton, with the distillery in the front window, two hundred metres from the site of the first Milton Distillery. It opened early in 2018, and the still ran properly from May.Whitestone Spirit Co bottle render, the brand before Milton, early 2018Hand-drawn plan of the proposed excise area at the Malecón, 19 January 2018The empty shell before the fit-out, 31 January 2018Bar nearly finished, 19 March 2018The still behind the iron screen in the bar, 21 March 2018The still seen through the street window, May 2019May 2018First spiritA white cane spirit on 17 May 2018, then the Spiced Cane Spirit: heads and tails rectified to a clean base and redistilled through a gin basket built in the bar. Sold as Whitestone Spirit Co with black and white labels from Officeworks, in pine cases Asa and Alex made themselves. First bottle shop: Craft Wine Store, Paddington. First bar: Red Hook.White Stone Spirit Co bottles lined up on the bar, 31 August 2018Two White Stone bottles in the branded pine case, 2 November 2018Prototype bottle and label, before settling on the characteristic square bottleLate 2018The nameA text from Steve Magarry of Sydney Rum Distillery: did you know there was a rum distillery two hundred metres from where you are standing? The first Milton Distillery made rum from 1873 until the flood of 1890. The trademark was free, so Whitestone became Milton Rum Distillery, and rum was made in Milton again.The naming whiteboard, 2 February 2019The first Milton Distillery offered for sale by tender. The Brisbane Courier, 11 October 1876, via Trove, National Library of AustraliaJan 2019The second stillNew fermenters went in behind the iron screen on Christmas Eve 2018. The second still arrived crated on 16 January 2019, went together in a day and was running the following week.The new still arrives crated on a pallet, 16 January 2019Alex with the new boiler, 16 January 2019Still assembled in the bar at dusk, 16 January 2019Fermenters in place behind the iron screen, 24 December 20182019On the shelvesThe first Milton Rum Distillery Spiced label in March, then the storm bird label in May: an eastern koel, though most people read it as an eagle. The bottles went onto shelves beside Rum Diary, Gunnery and Chairman’s Reserve, the Mr Manhattan went on Channel 7, and the back bar filled up.The Spiced Cane SpiritThe storm bird label (an eastern koel, often mistaken for an eagle): Spiced Cane Spirit, 17 May 2019The back bar: painting, cane knives, a small cask and the Spanish Inspired Silver and Dark, 16 November 2019Alex looking sheepish after getting covered in molasses from a foaming ferment, 4 February 20192020Covid, sanitiser and the columnRevenue went to zero in the lockdowns. Stranded wine and beer from wineries and breweries was redistilled into hand sanitiser: up to 20,000 litres of wash a week through a new continuous column still in a thirteen square metre room. When the rush passed, the column went back to rum, and the range went into Dan Murphy’s, BWS, First Choice Liquor and Vintage Cellars.The four products that went into the chains: Spiced Cane Spirit, Spanish Inspired Silver and Dark, Coffee StormThe team at The Malecón, 2020From inside the bar, looking out past the still to the Milton lettering on the window, 20202022The floodIn March 2022 the Brisbane River took the distillery, the stock, every barrel (including the first two-year-old rum) and The Malecón Bar. Nine months out of production, then a new continuous still built to the old design at Craft’d Grounds in Albion, in 17.68 square metres.The continuous column still at Craft’d Grounds, AlbionDrawing whisky from the Nant cask with a thiefBroken Chain Single Malt: the cask that came through the flood, bottled in 2022TodayWest EndIn November 2024 production moved to 99 Jane Street, West End, inside By Artisans: shared equipment, renewable energy, waste streams as inputs, and the team at Help Enterprises labelling the bottles. Milton Rum Distillery became Milton Distillery. The Spiced Cane Spirit is still here with its original label. Beside it: First Rain and Stormy Skies, Rising Sun, Agave Miel, Precedent, A’peel vodka and gin from fruit peel, the collaboration releases, and the first age-statement rum to carry the Milton name.The continuous column still at 99 Jane Street, West EndThe range: Agave Miel, First Rain, Stormy Skies, Rising Sun and the Spiced Cane SpiritSpiced Cane Spirit with cocktails

The long version

A coffee at the Kettle and Tin, Avery labels from Officeworks, hand sanitiser, two floods and the people who kept pouring us. Alex tells it in full in the Distiller’s Journal.

The 2020 film

The first Milton Rum Distillery bottles and logo, 2019 to 2022. We kept them because the trials got us here.