Husk Distillers

The Free Bacchus Story

Most rum is made from molasses — a by-product of sugar refining, shipped from wherever it is cheapest, several steps removed from any particular field. Husk grows its own sugarcane, cuts it, and ferments the fresh juice without concentrating it, in the agricole tradition.

Paul Messenger established the distillery in 2012 in the subtropical river country of northern New South Wales, and the fields at Tumbulgum are certified organic through Australian Certified Organic. The vertical integration, planting through to bottling, gives the organic claim a specificity that purchased-ingredient operations cannot match. Fresh cane juice produces a spirit that molasses-based rum simply does not taste like: grassy, floral, recognisably agricultural.

Twelve of the sixty hectares at Tumbulgum are held back for native forest rather than planted, with more than 4,000 native plants put in. The cane is cut green rather than burnt off, which is slower and more work.

The Husk Pure Cane Rum has drawn 95 points from IWSC. The commercial breakthrough, though, was Ink Gin, made with certified organic butterfly pea flower, which shifts from blue to pink when acidic tonic hits it. A colour-changing gin is an easier sell than an agricole rum programme, and it has funded the more serious long-term work.

For Australian spirits, this is an unusually complete and unusually checkable provenance: you can point at the field the bottle came from and it is a short walk from the still.