Mathew and Julie Cooper are behind one of Tasmania’s emerging whisky distilleries, and are eagerly awaiting March, when the first of their barrels will be ready for bottling.

Fannys Bay Distillery is a boutique operation in the sleepy seaside hamlet of Lulworth, in the state’s North.

Mr and Mrs Cooper began their whisky journey in 2014, after a bold statement.

Over a glass of whisky with friends, Mr Cooper declared “this can’t be that hard”, and the challenge was created.

“I have a long history with whisky. A long history with drinking it, but not necessarily appreciating it, like I do now,” he said.

With a background in mechanics, Mr Cooper set about making his own copper still.

“I’m just one of those people who, if I can make it myself, I will,” he said.

The Coopers’ still is also heated by hot water, rather than electricity, allowing them to distill their product as slow and low as they please.

“Everyone’s story of making whisky is much the same, but where we’re situated we’re going to get the influences from the sea,” Mrs Cooper said, and gestured to the ocean just several hundred metres away.

“We use local water that contains much of the minerals (from the sea air),” Mr Cooper added.

As well as pinot noir barrels from around the corner at Sinapius, Fannys Bay whisky is set to age in port, sherry, and bourbon barrels. 

It was Vaughn Dell at Sinapius who suggested the distillery’s name to Mr Cooper, in a conversation among the vine rows.

“I told him I was thinking of starting a distillery,” Mr Cooper recalled.

“He said ‘There’s a name that’s beckoning to be used – Fannys Bay’.”

Fannys Bay is the stretch of water the bends around Lulworth.

“The first few times you say it you get a bit of a smile,” Mrs Cooper said.

While the couple are new to the whisky making game, they said they were amazed by the support offered to them by established distillers.

When they registered their business, they were the eleventh distillery in Tasmania. Now there are about 25.

They are, by confession, a boutique set-up, and they don’t have goals of stocking shelves in liquor stores or hiring hordes of staff.

“Our biggest problem will probably be not making enough whisky,” Mrs Cooper said.

When they tap their first batch, it will be three pinot noir barrels at 30 bottles each, followed by the number one batch.

Already, as many distilleries are finding, many bottles have been ordered before they’re poured, such is the demand for the produt.