Australia's forgotten spirits, with historian Luke McCarthy

previously Australian Spirits products could compete on price, that changed when excise was increased dramatically between 1973 and 1978. So all of these Australian brands that had found a following in the previous decades suddenly didn't look so appealing. It's a sad story, but you know, we're we're very lucky that we've got a modern rejuvenation to talk about as well.

Welcome to Drinks Adventures, a podcast about drinks and the people who make them. I'm James Atkinson and in this episode we welcome back Australian Spirits writer and historian Luke MacArthur. To discuss two new books he has published in twenty twenty. Forgotten Spirits of the Distinctions Victoria, a landmark publication commissioned by Spirits Victoria.

And supported by funding from the Victorian government. This is the first time anyone has attempted a comprehensive historical account of distilling in Victoria, and what lose Far older and more dynamic than many of us would have assumed. Early nineteen hundred truly global scale. Only for federal Industry undone later that's The second book is St. Agnes de St. First one hundred years nineteen twenty five to twenty twenty five. Centenary of Central.

one of Australia's most iconic spirits producers. featured on this podcast back in twenty twenty two when the company launched its new Camboard historic photographs and in-depth interviews, Luke chronicles how the Angog Brandy House from the ground up in Renmark, South Australia, enduring floods, economic upheaval, and even the existential threat of the earth. Consumer tastes. Welcome Luke back to For a timely conversation that connects the past, present and future.

Well Luke, great to have you back on the show and have a chat about not one but two books. You've been very busy. We'll talk first up about Forgotten Spirits, which as I understand it, that was actually commissioned by the Victorian government, wasn't it? Can you sort of explain how that came to pass?

Yeah, commissioned by them primarily through Spirits Victoria Association. So yeah, the idea was I guess we were through tours, um, tastings, all sorts of things. There were a number of both Victorian Distillas and Docillas also around the country that have been quite fascinated about uh this

I guess forgotten era of Australian Spirits production. So the the point was to yeah, really start exploring it. I put a report together and then there's just so much depth and so much richness there that we thought, hey, this is this would also make a fantastic book, um, which is is something I've been thinking about for for a lot of years and so yeah, the uh the development of it progressed from there. When did you first get interested in researching Victoria's distilling history?

Yeah, I mean that probably goes back to sort of two thousand twelve, twenty thirteen, uh while working at Whiskey and Ailment. You know, I talked with a lot of older distillers and and customers about Australian whiskey and other spirits production, and I'd frequently sort of catch whispers about Gorio Distillery and Gilby's and these

old school producers which no one really knew much about. And that's sort of where it started. And then I started writing for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald and, you know, Australian spirits just became one of my one of my favourite topics. And from there, Hardy Grant Publishing asked if I was interested in writing a book about

Australian spirits. Um, and I was uh thrilled when they agreed to sort of go with my idea as an in-depth int exploration of Australian spirits. And in research and writing that book I traveled to about seventy distilleries uh right across the country and I was really happy with how we were able to capture what was happening in the modern era, but very quickly realized uh there was this dilemma where I had come across

the distilian history side of things and realize that there really wasn't a whole lot of it there there'd never been a major publication on the history of Australian Distillian or Spirits production, so I'd only been able to glean things from wine and beer and other Manufacturing histories and the writings of people like Chris Middleton, the co-founder of Starwood. He's an incredible decilian historian who's also been looking into this.

for a very long time. So that's where it sort of started and then the frustration with the Australian Spirits Guide and I suppose the joy of it is we got to see this open reality about about the history come to come to fruition a little bit. But I wasn't able to really properly crack it open. And so I I spent the next sort of seven, eight years really diving into it in a very, very in-depth way, trawling through archives and

all sorts of records and photos and in particular and talking to and interviewing a lot of different people too. And so when Spirits Victoria Association, I suppose, became more aware of some of the research I was doing. Um, it was fantastic to work with people like um Seb and Dave Irwin to put forward this history and to to turn it into something uh much larger and much bigger. So so yeah.

Why was Victoria the epicentre of the distilling industry in Australia? When we look back at Victoria historically, obviously uh a lot of gold wealth accrued in Victoria following the gold rush. And so that was used uh to prop up and to, you know, maintain and develop uh a whole whole stack of different industries. The successful development of the brewing and wine industry as well was also really significant, so we're mostly familiar with

the strength of Victorian brewing for this period. But a lot of us I suppose aren't as familiar with how dominant Victoria was as a wine producer during that that period as well. Prior to Philox for landing in in Geelong in eighteen seventy seven. Um the w this Victorian wine industry was was very significant. Unfortunately didn't really survive that period and there are a whole bunch of reasons for that, not only Phyloxera, but so you know, that was

That was a part of it as well. It was a big wine industry, so a lot of distilleries were converting that wine into brandy and and grape spirit um and a lot of beer was being produced and sort of converted into whiskey and other spirits as well. So protectionist harass and really the the the programs of a lot of successive Victorian governments during this period also helped.

They really use a mechanism of tariffs um against sort of imported spirits to prop up Austr Victorian manufacturers in particular. And so, you know, by the eighteen seventies Victoria became the dominant manufacturing state um in Australia and then

Following Federation, Melbourne becomes the capital of Australia um before Cambridge took over in nineteen twenty seven and then you know it's it's a real center of industry at that point. And so uh Victorian distillars, the ones that had survived and some of the newer ones that were built in the early nineteen hundreds really started to dominate. They started to produce huge

quantities of spirits and did very well and started to capture, you know, an enormous uh percentage of the consuming market as well. And so Those tariffs continued in some ways and in some forms. In 1925, uh the Bruce government introduced further tariffs on especially Victorian, I'm sorry, imported whiskey and imported cognac. And so Scotch whiskey at that stage, uh, you know, Australia was the most important export market for Scotch whiskey.

in the world at that stage. So there you get people like Distillers Company Limited. At that stage the largest distilling conglomerate the world had ever seen. They get a bit cranky about their market uh being damaged in this way, so they decide to build cryo and in nineteen twenty nine and really changed the face of the industry. Helbys follows in nineteen thirty seven and what happens, the ramifications of those very large companies basing themselves in Victoria sort of play out over the next

uh a few decades. So uh yeah, that's that's I guess how Victoria rose to become such a powerhouse.

What were some of the revelations that you uncovered through your research that really changed your perception of Australia as a spirits producing country? You can rafter things. Definitely um the quality aspect. that was established by a lot of these distilleries from from the get go. So they weren't out just to convert, you know, agricultural produce into spirit and and flog it off. They were out there to produce some of the greatest spirits that, you know, the world

could get their lips around. And uh when they started entering international exhibitions in the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties and doing very, very well, you know, it's abundantly clear that they they were doing a pretty good job of it. And so that was really a revelation for me. These were not producers that were just trying to pump out large volumes of bulk spirit. They were they were interested in producing very high quality

uh whiskies, gins, brandies and rums at that time. The other revelation is I guess how the industry cooperated um and developed and and gathered itself around developing into a force to be reckoned with and I guess how they approached government and approached a whole bunch of different organizations. Uh the Temperance Movement in particular as well. You know, they had to battle through

that period when the temperance movement was much, much stronger. Well, I guess you could argue maybe it's coming back again, who knows? Um so um so you know, but that that's I was I was fascinated to see how the industry worked together. And, you know, from dis disparate areas too. Um these are these are people um particularly in the case of

So the Joshua brothers and the Brynns, so two very important families involved in the Federal Distillery and the Warrenhept Distillery. Um, you know, they came together and were very cognizant of each other's success and and you know, that leads to a very major amalgamation in nineteen twenty four of one of the major whiskey concerns um in Victoria and

So there's a lot of cooperation there too. That's another revelation I think that's it's really important to how the industry is currently operating today as well. And then, you know, the details and the records. So some of the whiskeys and gins and you know the uh this intalizing details about how these things were made. Like someone like Thomas Atkin, um, at the Victoria Distillery Yeah, yeah.

records have survived about the triple distilled malt whiskey that he made alongside, you know, enormous quantities of beer. And, you know, oh d I can just almost taste uh the whiskey when you read through the records and the details. Um, you know, sort of Irish pure pot steel style.

Quality cast, quality grain, you know, external worm tub condensers, all this really nerdy stuff. So yeah, that that for me is like some one of the ultimate revelations too. You can you can get a taste of what these things would have would have been like as well through the records. And it is interesting learning about yeah, the quality of of some of these products. particularly as

You know, anyone who's who's sort of old enough to have still been around when Cario was still in business doesn't speak too highly of of any of the spirit that they tried. So clearly the the priorities of the business

changed over time and quality did decline in in the latter era in the case of Cario? Yes, absolutely. And that's the story that I think has confused people over many decades. Uh why did the quality slip? What brought about those changes in the way that the whiskey was matured and distilled there.

And, you know, that's a that's a very long story which which goes back, you know, a few decades before that. But, you know, I I guess there's not enough people around that were, you know Kicking along drinking Caro in the fifties and sixties, uh, that have written down those experiences or talked about it because, you know, Cario was just this incredible producer, which um

produced its own brands, but also supplied whiskey and gin stocks to an enormous number of brands. You know, over well over a hundred different brands used Caray stock in Victoria, New South Wales, uh, and South Australia and in Queensland too. So

that's something that's not really spoken about, just how massive and how integral they were to how a lot of the spirits industry operated once they once they got going. And, you know, when you go back and taste some of their blends, some of their um, you know, some of the early malt whiskies that they were

using in their early days, um and which they sort of continued to use uh further along. Um, you know, I I think these are incredible, brilliant spirits which stack up really well against uh a lot of very high quality products. of that era. So certainly by the time the seventies and eighties uh comes along and the Australian spirits industry has experienced a number of shocks which, you know, ultimately sort of lead to the uh a significant crippling of the industry. Um

the quality slid and and it wasn't there and you taste those seventies and eighties bottlings and um I you know, I don't think they're that bad. Like th I think I still think they stand up uh quite decently against uh other blends that were made at that stage. But yeah, that's that's one for I guess personal preferences and choices. But, you know, now they're becoming harder and harder to

to taste and to try. So it's it's a bit harder to make an argument that uh some of it was good and some of it was less good when, you know, the bottles are now rare and some of them are fetching fifteen hundred, two grand. I've seen some of them go for three, four grand. So yeah, it's a a different era now.

Yeah I just sort of thinking back to last time we spoke uh on the show, I think I was uh asking you about the Leopoldo collection of Victorian distilling artifacts. That was a few years ago now that you've written about that. Have you heard anything more about what's sort of become of of that collection, whether he's found a buyer for it?

Yes, I God, I I still have your report about this. I don't even know you you this is a question without notice. Um Yes, I uh I know I know where this collection now lives. Um I should write it up. I don't think uh The problematic thing is uh the the collection was acquired and now it is for sale once more. So it is a long story, but uh maybe we can leave that one aside for a moment. But I can absolutely speak to the collection and how important that particular collection has become.

to the um the current projects that I've been I've been working on because

dealing with the raw artifacts um in in the case of the bottles and labels, um, and and a plethora of other decilline equipment. But then also the decillian record books, which were critical for opening up uh a lot of different, uh, you know, un misunderstood uh elements of Korah Distillery's early production processes, um, federal distillery and Warren Hype as well, how their whiskey stocks were actually incorporated into

Carrier products like Treble A. Um, that was something I didn't really know. Well we had ideas about before, but I've actually found the exact page where you can see malt whiskey stocks being transferred from the federal and from

the Warrenhept distilleries um to Cario and then being used in in Treble A. And that's just like an incredible piece of history, none of which would have been possible without the Leopolder collection. So to Charlie and to Greg, uh, you know, I'm g I'm I say that uh and acknowledge them in the book as well. This is

you know, this is history that uh without their decades of preservation of of this stuff, when literally a lot of it was chucked into the landfill, that decision was made by successive companies, um across Victoria and New South Wales. They uh chucked a lot of these records just in the bin, which is uh which is criminal, uh I think, but thankfully they preserved them and uh now that's been used to to tell the story of the industry.

Well hopefully whoever the buyer is, there'll be an opportunity for people to be able to to see um the collection who haven't seen it, like myself. Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. Yeah. So that's it's a story I haven't thought about in a while actually, and there's a few people who know a lot about it, uh, and maybe they'll maybe we'll come out of the works uh over the next few months. Awesome. You made the comment when we were talking off mic earlier on that Australian distilleries

ever since day dot have tended to make a variety of of different spirits rather than just focusing on on one thing. And we see we see that obviously a lot today, often it's for cash flow reasons in the case of producers of of aged spirits. Why do you think that they had that tendency going back to the earlier days of of distilling in this country?

Absolutely born out of necessity, but born out of the success of our agricultural industries as well. Other parts of the world where, you know, environment or climate might dictate a certain thing, you know, that's That's all that grows in that region, and that's really all you have to work with as an aurora ingredient. As a lot of us know, Australia is, you know, a very complex, massive place with lots of different

climatic variations, geographical variations and so a lot of different things grow very successfully here. So um we have, you know, fantastic rain belts in different parts of the country. Obviously our wine industry uh is is so well established and has done very, very well now for a number of years in different regions too. You can really grow grapes uh in a lot of part of Australia. It's you know But then up north you've got to do that.

cane production and cane production in Australia is something that has been very successful for a very long time and our cane industry is is is doing really well at the moment. And so, you know, even some of the well the earliest distillery it's thought, well that's what I'm sort of arguing in the book, uh that

started producing some form of spirit in in Victoria at least was was probably done from cane or sugar. Some of it would have been imported, but then further along, uh that was a a bo basically an offloading and a byproduct

from the refinery that was built down here where a pot still was installed and they distilled some of the molasses into some spirit or maybe some rum. I'm not sure if it was consumed or used for something else at that time. That one's that one's evaded me so far. So that's partly the reason why these multi spirit distilleries uh continue uh and and progress really well.

in the case of sort of federal distillery Joshua Brothers in Port Melbourne here and they definitely looked at all of the different changes to taste and preferences and went, well, what's the point in just producing one style of spirit when we've got the setup that will enable us to produce

you know, fantastic quality rum, brandy, um, whiskey, malt whiskey in particular, blends. A little bit like Archie Rose uh today up up in Sydney. I think they're they wanted that versatility, but they were also interested in in chasing quality and everything they produced. And that mark of quality was very, very important. In the early 1900s, their brandies start competing with the top cognacs of the day, especially following Philoxera where the French industry uh w wasn't doing so well.

Their malt whiskies compete very successfully against Scottish malt whiskies of that period, especially when you have decilling regulations in nine oh one and nine oh six. which are more progressive than what had been seen in in the UK at that stage and sort of enables them to to make that quality argument about what was being produced there. And gin has also been, you know, a a cornerstone product for all of those age spirit producers.

Brinz Warren Height produced gin from from its very uh get go, uh as did the Joshua Brothers series, as did Caraya. The first product they released from Caraya was sort of a an Australian rendering of of UK brands. So that reality about not only agriculture, but freedom to explore and experiment, being sort of held back by certain traditions is also a really crucial part of the story. What were the the factors that kind of combined to bring about the demise of of the industry in Victoria?

Yeah, it's it's a Victorian story, but it's uh I suppose an Australia wide story as well. So what happened in especially the sixties and seventies was, you know, Australia liberalised as did the world. Um it's trade arrangements and international trade um became uh more successful, it became something that a lot of governments sought out and sought to increase. Um and that coincided with, you know, places like the UK, Europe uh and the States.

Really having recovered from World War II, in the case of the state's prohibition. And so they suddenly had all of their age stocks, in particular, their aged. whiskey and brandy stocks ready to go. They had very dominant companies. Uh their firms were well, the international distilling firms were mostly based in those.

in those regions and areas. And so it it was their imperative to make sure that the brands that they represented them and that were their cornerstone brands did well everywhere they were based. In the case of UDL, uh United Distillers or Coraio um and and Gilby's, you know, very, very successful international firms at that point.

They, along with other companies, started dumping huge quantities of of, you know, pretty high quality stuff onto the Australian market. Whereas previously Australian Spirits products could compete on price, and I guess make an argument to the Australian consumer on price, that changed uh when excise was increased.

dramatically between nineteen seventy three and nineteen seventy eight. So, you know, you had excise floating around three dollars uh at that stage and by nineteen seventy eight it was increased to about eighteen dollars uh

per pure hundred percent ethanol. And so in the case of, you know, whiskey and brandy, whiskey increased, you know, prices would sometimes increase two, three hundred percent in a year because they had to. That's where that's where the the excise was taking them. Um sales absolutely plummeted. So

Brandy lost about fifty percent of its market in a six or seven year period, uh whiskey a little bit less, gin sales lost about thirty, forty percent. It's all of these Australian brands that had found a following in the previous decades. suddenly didn't look so appealing. And, you know, that that colonial prejudice and scepticism had still remained. You know, there were sections of the community that were always going to be wedded to uh Scottish whiskey, to to cognac.

And even to British gins. So when the price differential uh was was taken away, then yeah, Australian brands were were less stranded and by the eighties, really, you're only left with uh a couple of distilleries in operation. Um I suppose we shouldn't leave uh Mildara Supreme brandy, Mildara brandy production up in Mervine there as well, which we had done very, very well um up until that point too. But

Conglomerate changes, ownership changes, all of these things had an impact too. So people that might have had those connections to the brand in in previous eras uh suddenly weren't really in those businesses anymore, and those brands very quickly become extinct. And you have to look back at that removal of tariffs and sort of see how it pretty much wiped out the industry within a few years. I mean, whilst it sort of makes sense to open up the industry to competition.

It was a bit heavy handed, wasn't it? Like you you have to sort of say that that was not a good thing, that we sort of basically saw the eradication of a of of what could have you know, I mean, imagine if there was continuity in the distilling industry from back then to

today. Yeah, and those you know, you look back and really analyze those decisions closely and who was behind them and what the reasoning behind it was. And often it was um I just think it was it was quite careless in a lot of ways, in the ways it was done, in the ways it was implemented, the speed in which it was implemented, and it was seen as a fairly small industry by that stage, um and very um centralized.

So you're only really dealing with three or four players. Most of them were owned internationally too. So their international arms were going to be able to to weather sort of any storm. And in fact, I make the point in the book that their international arms actually exparted experience a surge in sales.

um as their brands coming from overseas um started to to dominate. And so when these problems were aired and there were various inquiries launched, the people behind the inquiries weren't particularly interested in listening to the arguments of these asilian companies because, you know, they were seen as international firms.

that's the death of sort of family owned uh spirits brands in Australia too. You know, we've only really got San Agnes left, uh, that survived that period, um, and maintained a you know, a family owned spirits brand. I guess you'd add your lumber to that as w as well from

from South Australia. Um, but you know, I guess their brands are more recent and, you know, their their brandy. Um I didn't survive that period either. So yeah, it's uh it's it's it's a sad story. But you know, we're we're very lucky that we've got a a modern uh rejuvenation to talk about as well.

Well you've kind of bridged nicely into talking about the St Agnes book. Um tell me about About your interest in that company, I mean I I know that you've been a big fan of St. Agnes Brandys and rightly so for a long time. When did you start to explore the idea of doing the book with the Angos?

Yeah, Richard approached me uh almost four years ago, about three and a half, four years ago now. Um and and we sat down and had a bit of a discussion about it. I'd known Richard uh for for a long time before that and It was you know, I've always been a big Synagnus uh divertee. Um all the way I can recall, you know, days working at Whiskey Armament where you know we would use synagnus XO in all sorts of cocktails. You know, their XO was at that stage, you know, just

so so affordable. It's still affordable now. Incredible, incredible uh expression. And so traveled to the distillery in the research for the Spirits Guide and a few other things that I was writing. At that stage met John Angove and Ben Hawley, the Master Distiller, and I guess formed a a really great relationship with the Angos in Tastings and other events that we did with them over the years and we should have come across some of the writing that I'd done uh more recently.

especially some of the historical investigations that I've done into into various bits of the industry. Um and then yeah, I guess he just he just pitched it my way and said, hey, we're we're turning a hundred in twenty twenty five. Uh a a book is something we're very interested in exploring. Would you be interested in writing it?

And I didn't hesitate, of course. Um I was like, absolutely, that sounds bloody fantastic. And away we went. And it was a it was an incredible process and the angos were fantastic.

throughout. Um, we you know, we did discover some things that uh, you know, no one was quite aware of prior to the research and and th they've been fantastic uh in telling that story and and making that known to people as well. So it was a i uh just a an incredible experience and I'm Uh I'm very glad that uh everyone's happy with the final product now.

How good was their record keeping and and their archives? Like did they have a lot of of information that they and sources that they were able to share. It did. Yeah. So some of it had been lost in certain eras. They had uh a loss of records due to a flood, uh, quite a while ago. But then Ben Hawley, the Master Solar and Blender, who I just think uh, you know, he's he's a very quiet guy. He likes to do his own thing, he very much sticks to Renmark and

that he's an absolute legend and if you ever get uh a chance to spend some time with him uh at the distillery there in Renmark, uh he's he's worth seeking out. Um I just think he's probably one of the, you know, the top people in Australian spirits production, his knowledge is is yeah, just incalculable. And so he has very, very detailed records of different eras of San Angus production and we were able to look at those and explore those. And in the case of

the Synagnus exospirates that are being released, the forty and fifty year old. Yeah. I mean, we we're able to find information on the parcels that go back to nineteen fifty-three and nineteen seventy one and nineteen seventy two and what those parcels comprise of, uh the grapes involved. what they were matured in. So, you know, you discover things like stringy bike casks from from way back when, um, all sorts of different tawny and

Uh, sherry casts and um even whiskey casts back in the day as well. So all of those records we used to piece together the sort of technical side of the story, and then we had this. Pretty amazing, uh, I guess reckoning in a way when we went back and really dug into the Stagnus distillery story and uh and found this incredible connection with the Haselgroves.

who are, you know, a very famous family in in South Australian winemaking and we were able to tell a s a more nuanced story about the creation of St Agnes in nineteen twenty five and how Ron Haselgrove had, you know, spent this incredible period in cognac and brought back that cognac knowledge, worked with Carl Angov who'd who'd been obsessed with

uh that same production process for a long time and then, you know, created a brandy that survived a hundred seasons of distilling. So yeah, it's a it's a it's a very fun story. So were they very much just like seeking out to emulate cognac? Or was there sort of also one eye on creating something that's uniquely Australian as well? I think wonderfully, especially Ron Haselgroves.

writings from this period have survived. He wrote a recollections book, um, which which is a it's an amazing read, um, detailing his time uh, you know, in the cut and thrust of it in, you know, the mid twenties in Cognac, uh, dealing with uh different spirits merchants and distillers. He studied at Montpellier College there as well. Um and it was his very determined belief from the get go to

bring the principles of cognac production back to Australia, but then to also see how those same principles could be used to create something uniquely Australian. So you know, Ron going and distilling in Renmark, he was very conscious of the fact that Renmark is nothing like cognac. And so he was keen to see what the varieties that had best adapted to Australian conditions could do in, I guess, a cognac brandy context. So

I mean the other thing there is that they were very conscious of Australian manufacturing in this. So the Bergstrom steels, which come from a long line of sort of Swedish steelmakers based in South Australia, going back, you know, probably at that stage, probably forty, fifty years. Um

which is another thing that we're able to just sort of discover and talk about. I don't think there's really been any um uncovering or research done on on this side of South Australian decilian history. The fact that they were very aware of the stills that they wanted to use and

how they were suited to Australian conditions and the flexibility that those stills gave them. The Australian brandy pot stills in South Australia are still quite unique. There's not much I don't really know of any other stills that are exactly like them. And so they knew that all of these parameters were going to give them a unique brandy. And so that's what they developed at um at St. Agnes. And then, you know, in the in the Victorian Distillery book I get to talk about

uh what Ron uh went on to do at Mildara just across the border. So, you know, it's that's a Victorian story, even though, you know, it's got all these South Australian origins as well. So um that side of the story was was fantastic and and the Angos were were brilliant in in allowing me to tell that as well.

You make the point at the very beginning of the book, um, that St. Agnes is the only Australian Spirits brand established in the twentieth century that remains in family ownership. How and why do you think that the Angos have managed to do that? Well, it's a lot of uh stubbornness. It's a lot of determination. Um, stubbornness in the in the form of

People like John Angove, um, people like Tom Angove, uh so Richard Angove, who uh I've worked with closely in this book, um, he's the fifth generation of the family. Uh the wine business stretches back to to eighteen eighty six, uh T. Tree Gully there and

you know, that's that's an incredible story in its own right. And so you have a a successive line of people within their family and especially within the wider angle of business, absolutely dedicated to to maintaining what they love about their business. Um and that

been independence for the longest period of time. John Angove uh makes the point in the book that every time someone would come to to Tom Angove his father and ask about the the potential purchase or sale or moving on of the business, um, he would politely, you know, decline instantly and say, Absolutely not and John makes the point that, you know, It was his passion. It was his absolute passion. And what what would he have done after that? Uh he spent his life building up

that business um and trying to increase it in in every way he could. And when John Angove um came into the business into the seventies, he continued that legacy on and ensured that, you know, his his father's love of brandy was maintained, and that the dissolations that they were carrying out in the 70s and 80s were maintained throughout his period of ownership as well. And when the next generation comes through with Victoria Rango.

Richard Angove and Sophie Angove. They basically shared those same passions and beliefs and were able to, you know, propel things from there. So Yeah, it's it's it's it's highly unique. I was sort of aware of how unique it was um coming into it, but when you really sit down and and look at the numbers and look at the fact that, you know

any spirits brands in Australia created before World War two, St Agnes is the only one that survived um under family ownership. It's just it's it's an incredible and it speaks to the reality, I guess, of the the quite complex and fraught nature of um spirits production in Australia over the last century or two.

And as a reference to the the years of chaos and disrepair that St Agnes went through in the seventies, eighties and nineties, was that because of some of the pressures due to government policies, you know, that we w were speaking about earlier?

Absolutely. So um people like John Angove, people like uh Rob Hurst as well, who uh uh with Tucker and Co. and Tucker Seabrook had uh Shouthood Jananda, definitely the Hazardgroves, um and a series of other uh very senior figures, especially in the brandy industry.

fought against the rises uh in excise. They fought against um some of the trade practices that led to dumping of especially French brandy onto the Australian market and really hampering uh I guess Yeah, the the quality argument, um, but then also the price argument that Australian brandy makers were previously able to to put forth. And yeah, that that's a it's a very difficult story because you know that

decline in brandy consumption and production coincides with the rise in Australian wine both in Australia and internationally. And so what gradually happened is so many of these wine businesses It's also an age of conglomeration where some of them became very large and changed hands. And again, so you just see people in the business that might have been very passionate and very dedicated to certain brandy products in particular are are either moved on or changed or the facilities close.

and that loss of I guess consumer preference and maybe uh that little fashion crisis that Brandy had in sort of the seventies and eighties. Um It was just a perfect storm of of factors that that really impacted how Australian brandy was seen and and how it was produced and consumed. So John Angove, you know, fought through that entire period and

and, you know, maintained his faith in Brandy. And he still believes, you know, and has always believed that Brandy's time will will come again. Maybe that time is coming now. I don't know. I was at a a very uh fantastic cocktail bar that's just opened up here in Melbourne the other day and

You know, they were talking about uh, you know, cognac and brandy in their sort of household fashion. So I was like, well, that's something I haven't seen here in a in a very long time. So uh you just never know. Maybe, maybe the time is coming.

sort of got a identity problem. Do you think that the identity problem that it has can be overcome? I guess is the question. I mean, you only have to look back twenty or so years. to see that gin was certainly not uh in vogue at all. It was it was what your grandmother drank and and brandy seems to have s similar connotations today, which we know are obviously completely wrong because the yeah, the St. Agnert's brandies are just incredible.

Yeah, definitely. So I mean yeah, gin is a is the classic example, right? The only difficulty with um I suppose in the comparison between gin and brandy is you can't just

flick on a switch and create a thirty, forty year old gin or brandy, you know, it it takes time. So that is the the difficulty and I guess that's the wisdom and the foresight of of the whole Angov St Agnes Auxiliary project. The fact that um Tom and John and other people within the business um saw that hey if um if tastes do change and in the spirits industry we we know.

tastes consistently change when you look at the history and you rake over it, as I've been lucky to do on on many occasions, you see that different points in history, um, you know, certain spirits are in and certain spirits are definitely out. Um, you know, whiskey for instance, you know

It's not really widely understood that, you know, for the the greater majority of the the nineteenth century, whiskey in Australia in particular was not an invogue spirit whatsoever. It was brandy, gin and uh and other spirits that and rum in particular, uh that were w were far more dominant and whiskey's rise only starts.

sort of with the the bit the development of the Scottish blended whiskey industry and with the Queen. Um, you know, she had a preference for for for all things Scottish and for Scottish whiskey and then, you know, her um her love of it had a huge effect on whiskey consumption across the empire. So Yeah, those l little things you just you just never know and

I mean taste through the Senagnus XO brandy range and and even you know, they're more entry level expressions in the in the VS and the V S O P and it's just the I mean the quality is just second to none. Of all the things I've been lucky to try over the last ten years, you know, I really do feel like synagnos stands

absolutely there with the greatest spirits produced anywhere in the world. The 40 and the 50 year old, especially the 50 year old that's just been released. You know, if you can show me anything that can that can stand up to that, yeah, I'd be I'd be happy to try.

uh mere mortals about the about the fifty year old. Is that possible for for people to try? How much of that is around, you know? Yeah, there's there's enough there's enough of it around. I think I think I'm talking out of turn here, but I think there might be about five or six hundred bottles available. So and

Yeah, I mean definitely much reduced quantity compared to what was previously put in the barrels. I think the most of the barrels that were used in the creation of the fifty year old uh probably lost about seventy to eighty percent of their volume by the time they were they were bottled uh by the Angels Share. So yeah, it was an incredible process, an incredible blending process uh that the St Agnes Assillery and Angov team went through to to put that together. Um

And you know, you're left with something that's that's pretty spectacular. Australia's oldest age spirit. Um and I just think one of the one of the greatest achievements in sort of wine making and distilling in this country for sure. It's uh it's it's it's a big, it's a big brandy. It's much bigger than I was expecting.

Very much shows you the difference between sort of brandies and say whiskies generally. So a lot of things happen to older malt whiskies and especially grain whiskies that uh I've been lucky to try at that age. Some still have a lot of expressiveness. Um some have been dominated by the barrel somewhat, whereas It's incredible with this fifty year old. It's just still got so much fruit and lusciousness and that sort of s classic spicy marmalade character that you often get.

with St. Agnes. And there's you know, there's no sort of dankness or dampness to it at all. It's still vibrant and fresh, um, which probably shows you why the team is thinking about a sixty year old and even beyond, um, in the years to come. So yeah, it's it's a it's a pretty special thing. Absolutely.

And so tell me about the publishing process for the St Agnes book,'cause it looks like you've worked with Hardy Grant again on that one. You know, was it um difficult to get them to commit to a project like this? Yeah, the the Hardy Grand folks were were fantastic to work with on this and

Yeah, I've only got the book in my hands for the last fortnight as mentioned. So um seeing it visually, the photos, the way they have come together on the page is is incredible. We did work very hard to try and source uh as many photos. Some of them are from the

in the family archive that rarely see the light of day. Um, you know, seeing Carl Langove in his, you know, French cars from the the early nineteen hundreds sort of just bump along uh tracks through the through the Maui scrub, you know, on day long journeys, sometimes camping out overnight.

uh to travel from from Teterie Gully to Renmark. Uh the fact that we've been able to capture those sort of photos, old boilers, old stills, you know, things that just look uh quite foreign to us today. Uh I I'm so glad that we've been able to to get that on the page and I h I hope people

I can see that and and really get some joy uh from that experience. So yeah, no, it's it's it's been wonderful and my hats off to Ardy Grant and the entire publishing team for for doing everything so brilliantly. Where can people get hold of of that one? And also what about Forgotten Spirits, the Victorian Spirits history? Um let's just uh let people know how to get hold of it.

The St. Agnes Sillery first one hundred years book is out june tenth. That will be hitting bookstores at that point are also available online and via the St. Agnes Silvery website too. Um Forgotten Serits should be out late June, early July and We'll have more of an update on exactly where people can find that uh during uh once we've sort of finalised those numbers and ideas, but there will be a launch event. uh coming in the next month or two and

Yeah, from there I definitely uh intend to host a series of events. I'm gonna try and get my hands on and crack open uh some pretty old special bottles from former eras and I require advance notice for this mate,'cause um if I can get down I I'm assuming it'll be obviously it'll be in Melbourne, so

Yes. Um yeah, please keep me posted. Definitely will, Matt. Definitely will. Yeah. If I could there's a couple of ones that are if I can extract them from collectors' hands, I'm not sure if I'll be able to, but um, you know, th they will be momentous uh in themselves, those tastings if we if we're able to

to really get a handle on and taste some of the stuff that was produced, uh, you know, especially malt whiskey wise, uh, from the twenties and thirties now, that would be pretty fun and pretty special. Wonderful. And so that that will be a a print book though, that is going to be yeah, in print. And Yes, yes. Do you know what channels you're going to be selling that through?

Uh yes, well there'll be some available in bookstores, uh more than likely. Uh the publisher is Australian Scholarly Publishing, so a fantastic uh publisher based here in Melbourne specializes in Victorian history and they're doing a fantastic job uh with a raft of uh Australian and Victorian stories and so I'm so yeah, I'm I'm so incredibly pleased to be working with them on this book because

they're able to bring their their rigor, their insight uh into this process. And that was uh really important for me, the fact that we can tell a quite a rigorous uh historical story here as well, um, because you know, there really hasn't been anything um uh on this particular subject in that style. So yeah, that was a that was a very important thing to me and fantastic to have them on board. Wonderful mate. Well um congratulations on these two books. I know how much uh like I probably don't

fully appreciate how much work goes into them, but I've had a little taste of it from um yeah, from sort of from sort of reading those books. I can just see the amount of work. So congratulations on those and look forward to seeing them um yeah become available. Right mate, thank you so much. It's great to talk to you. Really appreciate it.