August 2025
Heartwood Lovechild 500ml
Created Exclusively for The Whisky Club
Australia’s best independent bottler joins forces with the Club for its first ever single malt collaboration – a cask strength monster at 64.7% ABV matured in two 50-year-old Oloroso Sherry casks.
Australian, Single Malt
Colour
Maple syrupNose
Almond croissant with melted butter, apricot, Violet Crumble and a hint of lemon zest.Palate
Soft caramel and Nutella alongside fresh blackberry and mandarin, ending slowly with bread and butter pudding, choc-orange and oak.What makes this whisky so special
If you know Heartwood, you’re already heading to your account to get a bottle of this.
And if you don’t…
Meet Australia’s best independent bottler: founded by Tim Duckett (“Mr H” to his friends) way back in 1999, Heartwood’s been a part of the Australian whisky industry since the very beginning. And we do mean the very beginning. Tim bought his first cask from Sullivans Cove in ‘99 – it was cask number HH007. He also bought the first cask Bill and Lyn Lark ever sold, blazing a trail that would be followed by many, but rarely with such spectacular results – Heartwood has won Australian Whisky of the Year a cool five times.
Because Heartwood is all about big whiskies: everything is cask strength, everything is full-throated, everything has an indefinable “Heartwood-ness” to it that has to be tasted to be believed.
Lovechild – Heartwood’s first ever collaboration – is no exception. Crafted by Tim’s son and protege Louis alongside our own Director of Whisky Seamus, it’s everything you’d expect from these cask strength maestros.
It’s a vatting of two 50-year-old Oloroso Sherry casks filled with robust, biscuity spirit from Fleurieu Distillery in South Australia. One was matured for a whopping ten years, while the other gives youth and balance – it got a still-impressive six years before being married with the older spirit.
Bottled at a ripping 64.7% ABV, non-chill filtered and with no added colour, it’s a quintessential Heartwood. Big, chewy, and not messing around, you’ll get a riot of buttery baked goods, treacled sweetness and tropical fruit, before a massive finish of vanilla, roasted macadamia and lingering fruit.
There are only 230 bottles, and they’re only for Members of The Whisky Club.
Join FREE today to get your hands on our next exclusive release.
This is why you Whisky Club.
Bottle size: 500ml
The Specs
- Price
- $265.00
- Age
- 50% 10 Years Old + 50% 6 Years Old
- ABV
- 64.7%
- Maturation
- Two 50-year-old Oloroso Sherry casks
- Country
- Australia
Heartwood’s History
If you haven’t heard of Heartwood, you’ve been missing out. And if you haven’t tasted Heartwood, you’ve really been missing out.
Heartwood was founded in by Tasmanian Tim Duckett (or ‘Mr H’) in the late nineties, when he – at that point just a lover of single cask whisky – started buying casks directly from distilleries in Tassie’s then-nascent industry.
He was the first person to buy a cask from Sullivans Cove when it was still called Tasmania Distillery, picking up cask number HH007 before they became a global household name. Speaking of household names, he also picked up the first cask Bill and Lyn Lark ever sold, as they’d already become good friends through their day jobs and a shared love of a good dram.
In 2011, realising he had way too much whisky for one person to drink, Tim bottled his first ever Heartwood: the Mt Wellington Release, which had, in keeping with the close-knit nature of the industry, been distilled by Bill Lark at Tasmania Distillery. This cask strength ex-Bourbon cask paved the way for what’s become Heartwood’s calling card: unrepentantly full-throated cask strength whiskies, released when they’re ready, and not a moment before.
With no commercial drivers or shareholders to appease, Heartwood has been able to explore all sorts of things an independent bottler might not otherwise be able to: vatted malts from multiple award-winning distilleries, non-traditional cask types, aggressive and experimental maturations, solera-style iterative whiskies, and even an ongoing ‘Dregs’ series which is drawn from samples and portions of every malt Tim’s ever released.
Heartwood has always been a family and community affair, and as the warehouse has grown, Tim’s son Louis has been called on to step up as a whiskymaker, blending and vatting his own releases as well as those under the Heartwood label (including Heartwood’s very first collaboration with The Whisky Club!).
So there’s the history of Heartwood, all that’s left for you to do is sip some – just make sure you’re ready, it’s not for the faint of heart.
Distillery Facts
- Region
- Tasmania
- Origin
- 3/2 Ascot Drive, Huntingfield, TAS 7055
- Founded
- 1999
Member reviews
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