By Tania Phillips
The pandemic proved to be just what Debra Spence of the award-winning Conrad Distillery at The Summit needed to help her follow her dreams.
And now Conrad’s is not only open but has just been named Australian Distillery of the year.
The distillery produces both alcohols and perfume, offering the unique opportunity to come for “sniff and sip” events and is the culmination of years of dreaming and hard work for Debra.
“This is something I’ve wanted to do for years,” she said of the venture which officially opened to the public just a couple of months ago.
“I’m a cosmetic chemist so I’ve dealt with essential oils and botanicals for a long time.
“We always had a plan to do a distillery Covid just fast-forwarded it by 10 years. If you’re unemployed and can’t do anything – what else are you going to do but work on your dream,” she laughed.
“We were pregnant for two and a half years with red-tape, so we have only actually been open for nine weeks.”
Conrad’s distills wine, working on a grape base they are producing vodka, gin and a coffee chocolate liqueur and eventually they will have brandy and bourbon.
“We like to say we rescue wines and turn it into great spirits, that’s what we do,” Debra said.
“It takes a minimum of two years to produce the brandy and bourbon.”
They are getting a lot of interest already especially now they have won Australia’s Distillery of the year – in one of the competitions they entered while waiting to be able to open.
“We won double gold for our vodka in the US, and we sent Vodka and Gin off to the Melbourne International Competition and won gold for the vodka, bronze for the gin and were awarded the grape-based distillery of the year,” she explained.
“It’s the first time they have ever awarded that.”
The awards are a nice shot in the arm for the fledgling business after two years of hard work.
“It says that I know what I’m doing,” Debra laughs infectiously.
Debra believes that patients is the key to creating good alcohol, she takes time to slowly distill through a copper still, understanding the art of cutting to only keep the heart of the spirits, then letting it rest up to 30 days before repeating the process to ensure each distillation is maximized. Being obsessively committed to excellence is what drives her to continually improve and produce spirits that she hopes are infinitely drinkable.
After years in the cosmetic industry working out why they work on the skin she decided to look for a new challenge. She and her husband sold their Stanthorpe home and bought a farm at the Summit to pursue the dream and their passion for the environment.
They are fueled by the need to find ways of using grapes that were tainted by the 2019-2020 fires and preventing the grapes going to landfill as well as being sustainable through reducing water use and CO2 production.
“In Summer 2019/20, before Covid and all the lock-downs, the Australian country was under attack battle worn from drought the fire swept through the land, including Queensland Wine country,” she said.
“Even if the vines survived the flames, the smoke had infested the crop, and the Wine would be tainted, making it un-sellable, leaving the vineyards no choice but to dump the Wine into the landfill.
“Through a proven triple distillation method, Conrad Distillery can take unwanted Wine and removes the impurities. The result is clean, beautiful, fresh spirit that is then can be turn into Vodka, Gin, Liqueur, Brandy and Fortified Wine Products.”
And of course, Debra is also making perfumes.
“That’s where I get to experiment,” she laughed.
“There is not much difference between gin and perfume, gin’s just a drinkable perfume really. The difference is you’re extracting the oils out of your botanicals – ones that you can drink. It’s no different to extracting the oils out of other products to make perfumes.
“We do classes so they (customers) can do their signature perfume.”
They are now getting their products into restaurants and bottle shops in Brisbane as well as working with a lot of other nearby local producers, collaborating with local wineries Ballandean Wines and Jester Hill winery as well as Ashburn Berry Farm and Jam Works to produce new products including a proposed marmalade gin.
“We are very lucky being in Australia, our base notes and our top notes all come from Australia because we produce such good ones (this is for the perfume) and all of the florals come from America or Europe,” Debra said.
“For our gin, our selection process is organic Australia, Australia and then organic overseas and then overseas if we really have to and we’re desperate. There are some things Australians just don’t grow – we are about to do a Vermouth collaborating with Jester Hill – I had to get it out from Europe.”
For Debra the work is really satisfying, and she believes they are filling a niche in the region.
“Not everyone likes wine, so it gives them something a little different, we do distilling classes and teach them how to make their own gin and the process of distilling and we just have a lot of fun,” she enthused.
“I go to work happy every day.”
To find out more head to their website conraddistillery.com
