Furneaux Distillery Co

Furneaux Distillery is located on windswept Flinders Island, north-east of Tasmania. The distillery was founded by Damien Newton-Brown, the Brown behind the McCorkell Brown Group, the company that owns the famed Brae restaurant in Victoria.

Newton-Brown holidayed on Flinders throughout his childhood, and he couldn’t believe his luck when the farm next door to the family property came up for sale. Being a big Laphroaig whisky fan, Newton-Brown bought the property and dreamt up the idea of creating a heavily peated Flinders Island malt whisky.

After a research trip to Islay in Scotland, he repurposed a section of the Flinders Wharf precinct into a small-scale distillery. Furneaux Distillery officially opened in 2019. A few months later, the first peated Furneaux single malts were released, and since then limited bottlings of the earthy and briny spirit have wowed peated whisky lovers.

A purpose-built distillery is under construction on the property Newton-Brown originally acquired to create a paddock-to-bottle whisky from barley that’s grown, peat-smoked, fermented and distilled all in the same field.

Until the new farm distillery is completed, visits to Furneaux’s cellar door at Flinders Wharf are welcome, but make sure to email or call ahead to arrange a time.