Ryan Hartshorn and his family run Grandvewe Cheeses in Birchs Bay, around 40 minutes from Hobart at the southern end of Tasmania. The Cheesery specialises in high-quality sheep cheese and other dairy products made from their own herd of sheep.

The cheese-making process used by Grandvewe generates a liquid protein called whey as a waste product, often discarded and put to little use. 

In a world first, Ryan spent years discovering how to turn the complex sugars held within the whey protein and convert them into a basic sugars to then ferment into alcohol and eventually distil. The resulting distillate is described as having “a delicately sweet bouquet and extremely smooth finish, thanks to the dairy influence and traditional aging methods”.

Ryan’s innovation led him to start his micro distillery, Hartshorn Distillery, making boutique batches of vodka, gin and vanilla liqueur from sheep whey. Each bottle and label is hand painted by Ryan.

“We are proud to be one of the smallest distilleries in Australia making small 80 bottle batches using a 200L glass column still. All of our spirits are unfiltered meaning you can enjoy a spirit with more character and complexity.” 

“Our sheep whey vodka this year won Champion Vodka of Australia at the World Vodka Awards 2017 in London. In 2017 we also won Australian Beverage of the year! Our Gin has only been released within the last 6 months however has been reviewed by the “Ginventory” app as a 9.5 out of 10.”

In addition, Ryan was also presented the Young Innovator of the Year award at the 2017 Innovative Tasmania awards.

Ryan now uses 100% of the Cheesery’s whey. His innovation could be applied to not just sheep milk but all milk varieties, essentially reducing not just Grandvewe’s cheese waste but all of the millions of litres of Australia’s whey waste.