It was around 18 months ago that a whisky colleague of mine flicked me an email saying he’d come across a new distillery in Adelaide. The operation hadn’t released any whisky yet, but he’d visited the distillery and was impressed with the approach being taken on site. “Keep an eye out” was the intel that came my way.
Fast-forward to the present and the distillery – 5Nines – is now an established name that is quietly plying its trade. And for those seeking diversity and variation from a single producer, 5Nines has hit the scene with a large range of whiskies that showcases different styles and flavours.
So what’s to know about the distillery? Well, the name is a good starting point: The owners claim their sole passion is to create the perfect spirit, and at 5Nines they’re trying to achieve perfection. 99.999% perfect? That’s the five nines.
The distillery was founded by David Pearse and Steven Griguol in 2016. Bringing together a handy and complementary set of skillsets, Pearse is an IT architect from the corporate world with a talent for anything electrical and plumbing, while Griguol is a builder/cabinet maker/sculptor who was self-employed at the age of 18 and loves making things and getting crafty. You get some insight into their “can-do” philosophy and prowess just by considering their key piece of equipment: Rather than wait in the long queue to have their still made by an established still manufacturer, they simply designed and built the still themselves.
Located in the Adelaide Hills and proudly wearing its South Australian heart on its sleeve, 5Nines sources its barley from a farm on the Yorke Peninsula and the barley is malted at the Coopers brewery in the heart of Adelaide. 5Nines also makes a peated variant with peat sourced from South Australia, employing the “post-malted” smoking method – not unlike the process undertaken at Lark (the actual Lark distillery) and also at Tin Shed (Iniquity). Importantly, 5Nines does its own mashing and brewing onsite – a key part of developing their own unique flavours.
The distillery wasted no time exploring what their spirit might produce when filled into a range of different cask types. (That’s also evident when you look at the diversity on offer with their tasting sample pack, pictured below). The majority of fillings have gone into casks sourced from local South Australian wineries: 20L, 100L, 200L; American oak, French oak, even German oak; ex-bourbon casks, apera casks, tawny casks, wine casks (including chardonnay, frontignac, verdelho, and a range of reds), tawny, stout casks, new oak casks, and more. With such a diverse range, I couldn’t help but wonder if there’d been any misfires, or if the distillery might struggle to find a signature style? Steven Griguol thinks not. “We’re still filling into different types of barrels, although bourbon and tawny would be close to our signature. We’re happy to vary it up. Out of all the different types of barrels we’ve used, they’ve all worked out – some barrels just need more time than others.”
Going into the business, Griguol was the more seasoned whisky drinker and Pearse was more into gin. Not surprisingly, the distillery started making gin a bit later in the piece, once the whisky making process had settled into its groove. The gin still was purchased from a supplier, but there are plans to make a larger still down the track as the business grows. Which it clearly is, as Griguol explains: “We started out making about 8,000 litres of spirit (whisky) in our first year; we’re now at around 20,000 litres. We’ve just moved the distillery to a larger shed; we’ve got a bigger mash tun, more fermenters, better chillers and so on. Next year, I’ll be making a 3,400 litre wash still to increase production.”
The current set up employs three 900 litre fermenters (washbacks, as the Scots would call them), and it takes three wash runs to collect a sufficient charge for the spirit run. Hence, the addition of the new wash still next year will clearly improve efficiency and production.
Brewing, distilling, and making whisky is a learning process until the day you retire. I asked Steven if he’d do anything differently next time around if he had to start again from scratch? “Starting the distillery the way we did was, to me, the best way. Being a person that doesn’t follow others, doing the three day course in Tasmania was enough to get me started and to then keep teaching myself. We learned through making the odd mistake, and that’s actually really valuable. So, no, I wouldn’t change anything.”
It’s very clear that passion drives much of what 5Nines is doing. I asked Steven what he loves most about the gig? “I love making things. Making whisky is the same to me as making art and sculpture – you can’t help being connected to it and immersing yourself in it – like understanding the land where the grain is grown, or knowing how the still works to make a good new-make spirit.”
So with that as background, let’s try some of the current crop. Rather than a formulaic set of tasting notes with mundane descriptions of Nose, Palate, Finish, this particular tasting set (pictured above) invited a more casual and rounded appraisal as we familiarised ourselves with the distillery’s personality. So what were our overall thoughts?
Let’s cut to the chase: The “Bourbon Light Peat” (Release PB001, 44.2% ABV) is a good whisky that’s been well made. It was the most well-balanced whisky in the pack; perhaps no surprise given that it’s ex-bourbon American oak. The whisky displays an earthy peatiness, rather than a smoky one, yet the palate retains its sweet cereal maltiness and the vanilla from the American oak. It’s all well integrated and very pleasant drinking.
The other whiskies in this pack will perhaps split the field. Those that like the drier, oak-driven style of whisky where oak and tannins dictate the play will enjoy the “Cask Strength Sherry” (5ND016, 59.1% ABV); and the “Cask Strength Altar Wine” (Cask 5ND237, 64% ABV) actually displayed some really nice fortified flavours…but the tannins from both these casks were a bit too much for W&W’s palate, with very drying finishes. The “Blend” ($150 for a 700ml bottle) and “Single Cask Chardonnay” (Cask 5ND112, 44.1% ABV) had clean, appealing and promising noses, but the spirit on the palate displayed some of the traits we associate with small-cask/short-term maturation where volatiles still remain in the mix. Again, some will go for this, but it will be interesting to see where the distillery goes as its spirit spends longer maturation times in larger barrels.
As we mentioned in this article earlier this year, South Australia is blessed with a good number of malt whisky distilleries now, yet perhaps doesn’t get its fair share of the limelight. For those wanting to explore the larger range of whiskies being made around the mainland, be sure to include https://www.5ninesdistilling.com.au/ on your palate’s itinerary.
Cheers,
AD
PS: You also might like our article, “The challenges of starting a new whisky brand“.
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