Nant Homestead Reserve

We’re very pleased to be able to feature yet another of Tasmania’s award winning distilleries for November. This month it’s the Nant Homestead Reserve.

Nant is slightly unusual as far as ‘old estate’ distilleries go. Rather than the estate grow with, and as part of the distillery, the Nant Distilling Company is only a relatively recent direction for the Nant Estate. Established in 1821, it wasn’t until 2004 that the Batt family took over and commenced restoration of the existing estate and construction of the distillery. In 2008 the first commercial whisky was distilled there and by 2012 Jim Murray had proclaimed it ‘Liquid Gold’ and scored their whisky 95.5. An incredible accomplishment by any standard. Nant have also diversified their whisky interests with the estate offering boutique accommodation and fine dining, taking full advantage of the incredible produce Tasmania has to offer. Nant also has a growing number of whisky bars around Australia.

For November, we’re lucky enough to be amongst the first to try Nant’s newest expression – the Nant Homestead Reserve. It’s only been available commercially for about 2 weeks! So new, in fact, that we haven’t even been able to get a product shot for our newsletter (the ‘official’ photo shoot happens next week – just a little late for our purposes) so we’ve had to make do with an image of the label from their graphic design department.

The Nant Homestead Reserve differs from all Nant’s previous offerings in that it is not a single cask whisky. Instead, Jim Murray (yes ‘that’ Jim Murray – of Whisky Bible fame) has hand selected a mix of six 100 litre casks. A mix off all three types of casks used by Nant for aging (bourbon, port and sherry) are used with the aim to capture a ‘house style’ rather than only a single cask expression. Whilst a comparatively large release for Nant at 1400 bottles – it’s still a very rare and boutique whisky by world standards.

Bronze colouration hinting at the European Oak barrels used. Very overt, rich stonefruits on the nose. Apricots and peaches. A warm and intense pallet with more ripe peaches accented with orange rind and vanilla. Two thumbs up!