Barossa-based distiller Brett Durand of Durand Distillery is in the process of launching South Australia’s first hydrogen fuelled, renewable energy distillery.
The distillery will be home to the innovative, small batch gin label, H2 Gin, distilled using only hydrogen gas and solar power – completely off the grid.
The process of distilling is the purification of a liquid by heating and vaporising it. Once it’s a vapour, distillers collect and recondense the vapour into a liquid, which is consequently more alcoholic and freer from impurities.
Mr Durand is optimising the distilling process to be more environmentally friendly – surprisingly, in an SA first…
“I’m using hydrogen gas to create heat, then on the cooling side of things, I’m using a solar-powered pump and battery back-up to run the cooling system completely off the grid,” he said.
“[Being environmentally conscious] is the new core of what we do. I had to move away from what I was doing before, due to circumstances outside of my control. Now, I’ve been forced to think about how I want to operate my distillery in the future.”
Mr Durand said H2 Gin was born from a desire to do more to combat climate change.
“I’m not sure if we’re the first in Australia, but we’re certainly the first in SA to run a hydrogen based distillery,” Mr Durand said.
“It’s about time that someone did something like this because it can work. I can now run an industrial facility without carbon. That means we [as a society] can do it on mass, which would help massively.”
The presently small operation, working from a 70 litre still and a pump purchased from eBay, managed to kick start on as little as $5,000.
“It’s about time. I’m surprised that this stuff hasn’t happened already. It’s time we address climate change,” he said.
Committed to demonstrated how the little guy can make a big difference, Mr Durand already has plans to expand.
“If you understand the fundamentals of how your crafts works, you can find creative ways to achieve the same outcome,” Mr Durand said.
“You need heat and you need cooling. Now we’ve found a source of hydrogen, we will upgrade to a solar farm attached to a battery system on an industrial scale.”
Batch one of the H2 Gin is currently in the works, with the label still yet to be printed. So, this is hot off the press, folks!
H2 Gin, once released, will showcase traditional flavours, created using a modernised technique.
“It’s not really anything like I’ve tasted before, but it will include the very core flavours of dry gin: coriander seed, light background notes of citrus and toasty spices,” he said.
For updates, keep an eye on the H2 Gin Instagram page.
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