Elisa and Valero Jimenez tell the story of how they started a distillery in the Southern Highlands among the ruins of a historic village.
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00:00 [Silence]
00:14 We were looking for semi-retirement and that's when about 13 years ago we bought
00:19 Joadja as a weekender to semi-retire which clearly hasn't worked out very
00:24 well. So when we acquired the property we knew there was a heritage site here and
00:27 we knew there was a distillery that had not been commissioned yet but we didn't
00:33 want to run a business here we just wanted to rest. Then we had a council
00:39 remind us that if we did not continue to operate the distillery business they
00:42 would revoke the consent and also the historic site tours we decided to
00:47 continue more as a hobby and also respecting the fact that people wanted
00:51 to see their ruins and the heritage. So we did that as a bit of a side hustle
00:56 and much to our surprise as soon as we released our first products we started
01:00 to win accolades and awards so that was a pleasant surprise but not where we
01:03 wanted to go. Then we had the governor of the state commission us to do a gin as
01:09 one of the official gifts of the state that ultimately went to the late Queen
01:12 and that was another wonderful and pleasant surprise so we decided to stick
01:17 around and beyond that we then had companies like Lion Nathan, a big
01:22 company wanting us to do products for them and it's just sort of
01:26 snowballed from there. Part of the point of difference here is of course about
01:31 seven years ago we started to grow our own barley for our whiskey because
01:35 whiskey is made from barley generally and so that's a point of difference
01:39 considering we grow our barley organically plus we have our own spring
01:43 for the water on the property so to have both the barley and the spring on the
01:47 property is quite unique. Joadja of course was the site of a mining town
01:51 140 odd years ago we had about 1,300 people here mainly Scottish people in
01:56 fact 95% of them Scottish Presbyterian brought out from Scotland because they
02:00 had the skills for mining and processing the kerosene shale they were mining here
02:05 that operated from 1878 to 1911 by 1911 the industry collapsed significantly and
02:12 they sold the property now it's of course a state heritage site of national
02:16 significance. Okay so here we've got the retorts. Retorts are essentially stills or
02:21 ovens where they heat the shale that's what you see on the top they would have
02:25 had faces on them by the way with a little hatch like a potbelly stove you
02:29 you've got tracks running along bringing the shale from the mines behind me
02:34 feeding shale into the top and then also bringing coal we've got two coal seams
02:38 here as well bringing coal for the fireboxes below anyway you'll feed the
02:43 shale into the retort liner lock it up light the fire below that then gives off
02:48 a hot oily vapor that goes through a pipe like a line arm for a still into a
02:52 condenser to cool down the vapors that vapor the vapors cool down to a liquid
02:56 which is crude oil like crude oil that you use for fuel for petrol that's
03:02 gravity fed further ahead of us where they refine into paraffin petrol and
03:06 kerosene and then of course value add into containers off to other parts of
03:12 the country
03:14 you
03:17 you
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