By James Atkinson
Tasmania’s Sullivans Cove has experienced unprecedented sales of its single malt whiskies after one of its expressions was declared the world’s best.
Sullivans Cove’s French Oak Cask – a single cask whisky from barrel HH525, of which there only 516 bottles – was declared the World’s Best Single Malt Whisky at the prestigious World’s Best Whiskies Awards 2014 in London on Friday.
Sullivans Cove marketing manager Bert Cason told TheShout that the company, its distributors and retail outlets such as Dan Murphy’s had been inundated with sales enquiries since news of the award broke.
“Our website crashed on Friday. We sold $26,000 worth of whisky, we wouldn’t normally sell that in a year,” Cason said.
“Mainly we’ve been selling HH434, the last remaining stock of the French Oak Cask that won best Australian single malt at the same awards last year – people have been buying those by the case.”
“We’ve also sold the last bottle of HH509, which won 96.5 in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible. That sold for $1265, which would probably make it the most valuable bottle of Australian whisky ever sold.”
Cason said Sullivans Cove had just about sold out of most of its expressions but will be bottling more product in the next few weeks.
Andrew Derbridge, director of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society in Australia, told TheShout that the accolade was a tremendous achievement for Sullivans Cove.
“When you consider it in the context of some of the other brands and distilleries and bottlings that it had to compete against to get that title, it is no mean feat at all,” he said.
But Derbridge said Australian whisky is long overdue for global recognition on this scale.
“The reality is that a lot of the Australian distilleries and Sullivans Cove in particular have been making fantastic whiskies for a long, long time now,” he said.