Launceston’s Harry Miller owes his success to a year 12 business studies project.
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When asked to do a business plan by his business studies teacher – Mr Tuck – Harry said making cider was the obvious answer, since he grew up on an apple farm.
“Then I realised there was an opportunity in the industry,” he said.
Three years later, after his family sold its Miller’s Orchard to Geoff Carr, and while studying full time in Melbourne and working four days a week at an accounting firm, Harry revisited the plan and became the brains behind Little Mary’s Cider.
He wasn’t deterred by no longer owning the farm. He took the plan to Geoff who rang him back within weeks and told him he had found a local person willing to lead the way as head cider maker. The drink would be made using the farm’s fruit.
“There was a real excitement around Tasmania about cider,” Harry said.
“In my first year of uni, I really wanted to ramp it back up again. That’s when Geoff came along and we found someone who was prepared to make it for us.”
Brewed in Hillwood, next to his fourth-generation family-named orchard, Harry said the sparkling apple cider was made in a similar way to champagne.
“The reason we can call it a sparkling cider is because it has a cider base, like normal cider, the first fermentation is in the barrel. But the second fermentation is in the bottle,” he said.
“I wouldn’t say it separates us from the rest, but it’s certainly a niche product in itself.”
The real point of difference with Little Mary’s is the 750ml bottle and the use of a cork.
“We were very impressed with the fact we could get it as a cork. The cider industry has taken off and you need to find the product that fits into the target market,” Harry said.
While he might know the ins-and-outs of cider now, Harry didn’t know a thing about cider before he started brewing it.
“I was 18 when I first started playing around with the idea. I did a lot of research not just within the market, but how to make it,” he said.
“It was about researching and surrounding myself with people who knew what they were doing.”
Harry said he learnt enough to take over the reins.
The cider launched in March and took off a lot quicker than Harry had expected.
“I was here working on it full-time during summer, so we missed the peak season, but the first six months were crazy in terms of the amount of product we were pushing out,” he said.
“It was really overwhelming, but that isn’t a bad thing.”
The cider is named in honour of Harry’s dad, Mark, who passed away.
“He was the manager at Miller’s Orchard, I grew up here, we were a fourth-generation farm, we had it for about 90 years,” he said.
“My dad lived and breathed this place. He worked here all his life. So there was a lot of heartbreak within the family when we sold it. But we’re fortunate enough to still be involved.”
While naming the cider was the last thing Harry was thinking about, he was sitting in what was previously his grandfather’s office when the name became obvious to him.
“My old man’s nickname was Mary … I looked up and saw a photo of my dad sitting on the apple bins when he was about two, and from there it grew,” he said.
“I approached my mate, Alex Roome, who is an architect and he was able to turn the picture into a label.”
Harry is optimistic about the cider’s future, with big plans for its future.
He hopes to move the cider interstate.
“We’re looking to move it in to the Melbourne market.There are about three places in Melbourne that we have been distributing it to. There is more opportunity in Melbourne because of the amount of bars,” he said.
“The Melbourne guys love anything Tasmanian, but especially our design and the 750ml bottle and cork. They say they haven’t seen that before.”
However, Harry thinks the cider will go further if he takes on the advice his distributers have given him.
“We’ve found the bigger bottle doesn’t really cater for all the restaurants. It’s not like a normal bottle, they can’t just put the lid back on,” he said.
“They can’t just ... sell one glass, they have to sell the whole bottle in one night.
“The whole idea with the 750ml bottle was so that people could share it, and in summer that worked really well.”
Harry said they have adapted and listened to the restaurant’s feedback and hopes to have the cider distributed throughout Tasmania and all over Melbourne in about 18 months.
“We will be launching a 375ml bottle with a cap. So it’ll be a different process in the way that it’s made, but there will also be a 375ml with a cork,” he said.
Little Mary’s will soon have a pear cider on the market, too.
“We’re really excited about the pear. We want to try and incorporate another sort of fruit too … hopefully some strawberries from up the road,” he said referencing the many berry farms in the East Tamar.
“But that is a whole other ball game, with lots of trial and error.”
While this wasn’t where Harry thought he’d be at age 22, he acknowledges he is lucky.
“I was lucky enough to be in a position where I already had some of the materials and infrastructure in place so it wasn’t such a big leap,” he said. “I was always looking for a business opportunity. So when I weighed up all the pros and cons, it had way more pros.
“But the response we’ve got from everyone has been really overwhelming. They have thrown their support behind me.”
Harry and his team are about to start gearing up for summer.
They plan to have about 10,000 bottled ready for the period, including the 375ml bottles in both pear and apple.
He hopes to feature at Festivale, Bridport’s Last Summer and possibly Party in the Paddock.
“Summer is going to be really big for us, we’re going to push out a lot of numbers,” he said.
While Harry admits his dad wasn’t much of a cider drinker, he still thinks he’d be impressed.
“He’d be very proud of it,” he said.
The cider is available from Crown Cellers for about $17, and Kingsway Bar, Mud Bar and Restaurant and Levee Food Co.