About
Casey Overeem's second distillery venture after selling the Overeem brand to Lark. Old Hobart single malt whisky. Small batch, cask strength expressions. Port and Sherry cask maturation. Tasmanian terroir.
Production Details
The Old Hobart Distillery Tale
The mountain watches over everything in Hobart. Mount Wellington rises behind the city like a granite sentinel, its slopes catching the Roaring Forties that sweep across Bass Strait. From its springs comes water that has filtered through dolerite and sandstone for centuries, carrying the essence of this ancient land down into the Derwent Valley.
Casey Overeem understood this connection when he established Old Hobart Distillery in 2007. He had already proven himself in Tasmania's whisky renaissance, but selling the Overeem brand meant starting fresh. The mountain's spring water would anchor this new venture, just as it had sustained generations of Hobartians before him.
In Australia's whisky story, Tasmania occupies sacred ground. The island's pristine air and dramatic temperature swings create a maturation environment unlike anywhere else on earth. Summer heat draws spirit deep into the wood, while winter cold contracts the barrels, creating a breathing rhythm that accelerates aging. What takes a decade in Scotland might happen in half the time here, yet with a distinctly Antipodean character.
Overeem chose his casks with the patience of a man who had learned whisky's lessons well. Port barrels and sherry casks rest in the distillery, their previous lives in fortified wine service adding layers of complexity to the maturing spirit. Each barrel becomes a conversation between Tasmanian grain, Mount Wellington water, and the wine-soaked wood that once held Spanish solera or Portuguese vintage.
The distillery operates on small batch principles, each run measured not in thousands of liters but in careful hundreds. Cask strength expressions emerge when Overeem deems them ready, bottled at the proof they've earned through their dialogue with wood and climate. No two batches tell quite the same story.
This is Tasmania's gift to world whisky—not the patient, measured approach of older traditions, but something more urgent, shaped by a land that demands attention. The Roaring Forties that batter the island also carry its whisky's reputation northward, where Old Hobart's expressions join the chorus of Australian single malts surprising palates from Tokyo to Edinburgh.
Mount Wellington still watches, its springs still flow, and Casey Overeem still tends his barrels, writing the next chapter in Tasmania's unlikely whisky tale.