About an hour south west of Brisbane lies one of the most fertile regions on the planet. The Scenic Rim. Put something in the ground and as long as it can sweat it out like the locals, it will grow, and fast.

Sugarcane hasn’t been grown as a production crop there for decades but it has a rich history with the sweet stuff. In fact, the area was identified as a future target for the sugarcane industry until the conglomerates moved the fields north.

With sugarcane, comes rum, another craft the Scenic Rim has tangled with in the past.

There was one distiller in the early 1900s who had quite the reputation among the logging crews for a particularly potent brew. Since then the legal industry has died down, choked out by regulation and other factors … but everyone knows a guy, right? 

What remains is the dedication to growing fine crops and a love for Australian rum and we are continuing that tradition on our family farm where we grow heritage sugarcane and fruit varieties and botanicals.

For us, we hope we are bringing back both the rum and sugarcane industry to the Scenic Rim. The couple behind Brasshound Distilling in the foothills of Mount French in the Scenic Rim, are on a mission to revive the long lost tradition.

Along with the rum which is patiently waiting in barrels, we have put together a gin with as many local ingredients as possible. Each season we will update the fresh ingredients to what is locally available.

Our passion is rum and gin but in a place where you can grow nearly anything it would be a waste not to branch out time and again. This is why at harvest we look for the best produce to make spirits for our Exploration collection. Whether it’s barley in November for whisky or a rare crop of tropical apples in Spring for an eau de vie, as long as it is great produce we want to preserve those flavours in our spirits.

As for our name, it comes from our friendly distillery dog Arlo, a retriever brassy in nature and colour.