Hand crafted

Manly Spirits Whisky – Coastal Stone

Bottled under its own brand Coastal Stone, Manly Spirits has been releasing whisky since October 2021, following a recognisable and time-honoured process to any whisky lover, uniquely aged on the NSW coast.

All of the barley used to make Coastal Stone is grown and malted in Australia, supporting local farmers. The barley is germinated, in a process known as malting, which means the starch in the barley is converted into soluble sugars. Those sugars are what is then turned into alcohol.

Coastal Stone buy in their Australian malted barley and then mill it themselves in a two-roller mil into the distillery's desired consistency. The next step is mashing, adding the milled and malted barley to water and heating it, to extract all the sugar. Inside a combined mash/lauter tun, Manly Spirits then separate out the now malt sugar-rich liquid from the spent grains, leaving them behind. The mash is now a wort.

Using a blend of yeasts, this wort is slowly fermented over five days to produce something most drinkers would recognise as a beer, just lacking hops. The long fermentation time (double that of some Scotch blends) gives the wort plenty of time to develop flavours that will be captured in the final drink.

From the fermentation tanks, the soon-to-be-whisky now travels over to Manly Spirits' uniquely designed double copper pot still to be double distilled. The first distillation will bring the alcohol level up into the high 20s, and the second gives a clean, sweet, and malty new make spirit ready to be aged.

Coastal Stone's clean qualities on their new make are delivered by tall stills with upward-sloping lyne arms, while the still's onion-like shape adds additional reflux and spirit purity. In this final spirit run the distillers take a small foreshot cut and slow the still right down to further enhance the whisky for optimum barrel maturation.

Maturing close to the NSW coastline, the whisky sits in barrels from 100 to 500 litres for up to five years, picking up marine elements from temperate land and sea breezes. Each expression consists of carefully selected casks, with the Element Series showcasing mostly 100-200L first fill casks from sherry, bourbon, pinot, shiraz and port casks, and the Nor'easter marrying together a range of 225-500L ex-wine and ex-bourbon casks.

Aged and almost ready to be drunk, the whisky is non-chill filtered and bottled. No colouring is added.

Manly Spirits Gins and Vodkas

For its gins' base, Manly Spirits uses an Australian wheat neutral grain spirit. Once this arrives at the distillery ready to go, it is then passed through the Holsten still with all the botanicals needed to make whichever gin the team are distilling that day.

Manly Spirits uses the distillation method called 'one shot', meaning they use a recipe that strikes the perfect ratio of raw botanicals and neutral grain spirit to end up with a liquid at the end that only requires diluting, rather than blending in more spirit. That's not to say the team didn't experiment with other methods in the early days but this is the one that works best for their gins.

Inspired by the coastline so close to the distillery, the team use traditional botanicals – such as juniper, citrus peels, coriander, angelica and orris – as well as some native and marine ones you might not have seen in gin (or vodka) before. These include:

Australian Dry Gin:

• Sea parsley
• Beach-cast kelp
• Finger lime
• Anise myrtle
• Mountain pepper leaf

Lilly Pilly Pink Gin:

• Rosella
• Lilly pilly
• Riberry
• Native limes
• Sea fig

Costal Citrus Gin:

• Lemon aspen
• Sea parsley
• Lemon myrtle
• Meyer lemon

Their distiller then makes several cuts, and here at Manly they don't use automatic cuts at certain alcohol strengths but rather rely on the distillers to choose the moment the heads are over and the heart is coming through. The Lilly Pilly Pink gin is then infused with fresh raspberries for 18 hours to get its hue, and then just like the others it, and they, are then watered down to 43%, bottled and sent out to be enjoyed.

The vodka process is incredibly similar, using the same wheat spirit, before being passed through the still and, in the case of their Marine Botanical vodka, infused with sea parsley and beach-cast kelp.

Manly Spirits Zesty Limoncello

A much-loved favourite from this distillery, the Manly Spirits limoncello combines a traditional Italian recipe from the Amalfi coast with some foraged Australian botanicals.

Using large lemons with perfumed peels supplied from an orchard on the central coast, just north of Sydney, the team at the distillery hand peel the lemons, being most particular to avoid the bitter pith. These peels are then infused slowly into a grain spirit. The result is an aromatic citrus oil spirit that is then combined with the native botanical distillates of lemon aspen and lemon myrtle.

Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur

Manly Spirits Cold Brew Coffee liqueur uses sustainably and responsibly sourced beans from locals Seven Miles Coffee Roaster, distilled native botanicals and sea minerals – all of which is infused into a wheat vodka.