Skip to content
Joadja Distillery
Joadja Distillery is located in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia. The town of Joadja was established in the late 1870’s by the Australian Kerosene Oil and Mineral Co and the hundreds of Scottish oil shale miners who brought with them their skills in the mining and retorting technique… and the stilling and brewing of “sly grog”.
The Scottish heritage in the valley and the history of "sly grog" has inspired the Jimenez family who currently own and manage Joadja Town, to establish Joadja Distillery in 2014. The Jimenez family has also tapped into their own Spanish heritage and have sourced ex-Oloroso and ex-Pedro Ximenez butts from Spain to mature their Whisky. These barrels are historically known to be the types of barrels that the Scots consider the best to mature whisky and we are lucky enough to have the Spanish language and connection to be able to source and ship them to Australia and fill them with our own Australia made malt spirit.
Visit the cellar door where you will experience how we harness nature’s ingredients to produce a truly unique Australian Whisky and have a wee tasting of our Joadja Wee Heavy Scottish Ale while we wait for our whisky to mature. With fully guided tours on offer, a café on site and the opportunity to visit a site of world heritage significance, Joadja is a great day out, so bring everyone and experience it for yourself!
What makes us different?
- We grow our own barley on our own property. We sow it and harvest it ourselves using our equipment. We don’t spray the crop (barley) with anything (we are not yet organic certified but working on it).
- We only use spring water from our own on site spring (not a creek or a bore. It’s a proper spring).
- We don’t add any adjuncts into our mash
- We distill a wide range of products from Single Malt Whisky, Rum, Brandy, Liqueurs, Dry Gin and soon Vodka. More specifically, we are now commencing production of our own ethanol from our own agricultural produce on site for our Dry Gin, Vodka, Liqueurs, etc. This makes us quite unique not only in Australia but across the world.
- We have won awards for our whiskies, dry gin and liqueurs (we are not a one trick pony)
- We use arguably the best barrels for maturing our spirits (authentic ex-Sherry barrels from Jerez).
- We are now one of the “greenest” distilleries in the country as we use electric stills (not gas powered nor diesel generators nor biodiesel) and we have 32kW Solar Panels (soon to increase to 56kW).
- We recycle our cooling water (no glycol systems)
- We compost our spent barley (draff) and/or use for cattle feed
- We do free tours of the distillery and tastings
- We use Australian Made Copper Pot Stills
- We are on a 718 NSW State Heritage Listed site of national significance.
Cellar door, tastings, tours, workshops - ph (02) 4878 5129