BUILT from a passion for fine drink and an aim to use locally sourced ingredients, South Arm Distillery is one of the latest small businesses to make their way through the Seedlab program.
Kent and Jean Moore started producing their gin in September last year as the pinnacle of their new-found passion.
Their distilling shed in South Arm houses their 300-litre hybrid still capable of distilling alcohol at 96 per cent, affectionately known as Rowdy.
They have been producing an array of gins with influences and ingredients from local producers, as well experiments with limoncello and eyes on their “endgame” drink, whisky.
“Up until a few years ago, I hadn’t had whisky since I was about 20. Back then it was mixed with coke, and I made myself very sick,” Mr Moore said.
The couple have a background in teaching and they are planning on developing their connections made through the Seedlab program to expand their repertoire of ingredients.
“We are going to try to be as local as possible, to keep our food mileage down, and with small batch brewing we can do that,” Ms Moore said.
“There are farmers that have a lot of fruit that isn’t quite good enough to go to the markets and there’s never anything wrong with them, so hopefully we can come in and turn that into fruit schnapps, or fruit brandy.”
Having started their distilling journey in 2018, they produced their first drink in 2020 under the Taswiegian name, with help from John Wielstra of Corralinn Distillery and Mathew Cooper from Fannys Bay Distillery.
Their plan for the future of South Arm Distillery is to keep the momentum going, with ideas to host brewing and tasting days on their site in South Arm.