CLOSED AUSSIE DISTILLERY
June 2026
Heartwood The Devil Made Me Do It
Created Exclusively for The Whisky Club
Heartwood – Australia’s best independent bottler – has resurrected a long-dead Tassie distillery in spectacular fashion, bottling one of the last Redlands Distillery casks in existence, at almost 10 years old, exclusively for the Club. 500ml bottle.
Australian, Single Malt
Colour
Chestnut redNose
Slathers of butter and marmalade on fruit toast, vanilla bean and fresh cherry danish.Palate
Baked apple turnover dusted with cinnamon, with a bold finish of nutty fruitcake and custard.What makes this whisky so special
Diabolical. Dark. Delicious. Tim Duckett of Heartwood has pulled a stunning 9-years-and-10-months-old single cask out of the bag from one of Tassie’s earliest – but sadly now ghosted – distilleries, exclusively for Members.
Literally only a handful of casks survive to the current day (we know of five in existence, of which this is one), making Redlands’ whisky some of the rarest in Australia.
And on top of that rarity, this cask is exactly the kind of malt that made Heartwood’s name.
Founder Tim Duckett has been championing the Australian whisky scene since the very beginning; he bought his first cask from Sullivans Cove back in 1999 and bought the very first cask Bill and Lyn Lark ever sold. With a commitment to only release full-throated, cask-strength whiskies, Heartwood has won its spot as Australia’s best independent bottler fair and square – along with taking out Australian Whisky of the Year title five times.
Described as ‘full brontosaurus Heartwood – the stuff you dream about’ at Club HQ, this is classic, heavily fortified-influenced single malt at a devilish cask strength of 66.6% ABV. Matured in a single 50-year-old American oak Oloroso cask for a full decade, it’s a sticky, indulgent beast with layers of slathered butter, fresh cherry danish, cinnamon and fruitcake, bottled with no chill filtration and no added colour.
With only 230 bottles yielded, stock of Heartwood The Devil Made Me Do It was limited, and exclusively available for Members of The Whisky Club.
500ml bottles.
The Specs
- Price
- $295.00
- Age
- 2016 Vintage
- ABV
- 66.6%
- Maturation
- Fully matured in a single 50-year-old American oak Oloroso Sherry cask
- 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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THE OLDEST EVER 100% ISLAY BARLEY BATCH
November 2026 Whisky of the Month
Bruichladdich Islay Barley Unpeated 14 Year Old, Club Exclusive Batch
The oldest ever 100% Islay barley Bruichladdich batch is coming, and Members of the Club get it before anyone else in the world. “This is Bruichladdich at its absolute peak.” Unpeated, 14 years old, made entirely using the rare remnants of 2011’s vintage stocks.
