Our whisky is carefully curated by a team that start early in the morning and finish late at night. We wanted to shine a light on these team members to give you a deeper insight into how much goes into making a bottle of whisky you see sitting on the shelf. Below in production order is brief description of the role each of us play in the process.
Simon Adams: Brewer / General Production
Simon has been with us for just on 12 months and is a home brewer and part owns a local commercial brewery called Middle Island Brewery. Simon is right at the start of the whisky journey and performs all our mash’s, controlling fermentation and transferring wash to the stills. Simon looks after our spent barley aswell ensuring it gets from our mashing facility to our farm for blending into a feed ration for our cattle. Simon also helps on the bottling line and in the cooperage and being a qualified boiler maker I'm never short of things to get built or fixed! Simon is also filling in performing some distilling and helps out on the bar at Timboon and at the Barrel House in Port Campbell. Very versatile!
Kevin Tesselaar: Distiller
Kev, there's not much he hasn’t done but Kev's main role now is running the stills on a daily basis. Kev has been with us for over 6 years and has been instrumental in building our whisky stocks over the years. Kev helped install our first mash tun on a dirt floor at Brucknell then later also installed our new kit in Timboon. Through Covid-19 Kev did huge hours working the night to provider sanitiser to the local hospitals. He also helps around doing general maintenance across all sites including our beef farms and can often be heard giving a detailed account of the distilling history from behind the bar.
Heath Mason: Cooper
The barrel man, Heath looks after all things in our cooperage. Heath has been learning the art of coopering now for over 4 years from the most experienced coopers in Australia. Having full control of our casks gives us an edge over most distilleries that have to rely on others to perform this critical task. Heath not only works on all our casks for whisky but other distilleries, wineries and breweries now bring casks to Timboon for Heath to work on. Heath also manages our beef farm at Simpson which was a dairy farmed by the Mason family up until 2019 when heath retired from farming and came to work for us.
Josh Walker (Me): Head Distiller / Blending
My main production role now is performing all the blending and getting the whisky ready for bottling, having a large number of casks to draw on for our different lines is slowing making it easier to blend larger batch sizes for the increasing demand. I also oversee the entire production process from lodging excise to selecting barrels at wineries.
Charlie Johnson: Blending
Charlie is our Brand Ambassador and also Bar Manager, however I get him also to help with blending whisky. As we have so many casks to get across its in valuable to have someone access casks so I don’t have to do it all (taste all day!). Also having a consistent second opinion on the process is a good way to ensure all blends are consistent.
Matt & Glenda Walker: Bottling and Logistics
Mum and Dad. I would be lost without them, they do so many of the little things that keep the show running. Mainly keeping our bottled whisky stocks up, they also receive and send out all our wholesale orders and online retail orders as well helping at events, doing laundry and running the Brucknell beef farm. Just about everyone bottle of whisky that has been made by us had their touch to ensure it goes out consistently every time.
As you can see this area has quite a few moving parts. In 2015 I used to do it all on a very small scale. We have slowly grown this side of the business over time as finances have allowed. As you probably know whisky is long term investment and it takes along time to get a return on investment hence our slow growth.
Please email me with any questions josh@timboondistillery.com.au
Cheer Josh
Owner / Head Distiller