Distilling is delicate and precise. It’s a special kind of magic that Kalki Moon casts over the copper stills and ageing barrels that fill its distillery.
It is not only what goes into the bottles that owners Rick and Kylie Prosser pay close attention to. They approach their distilling by-products as carefully as they curate their award-winning beverages, ensuring very little goes to waste.
“We are using the best botanicals we can, with no artificial flavours used in the distilling process. Even when we started with our little stills, once we took the alcohol out we would still have five kilograms of botanicals left over. It just got me thinking that surely we could do something with these instead of just throwing them out,” Rick said.
The botanicals are given to Australian Gin Soap Co, a Bundaberg-based business which started using the botanicals in soaps, before branching out into beard and body oils, and bath salts. Kalki Moon sell the cosmetic products in the distillery gift shop.
“It’s this nice circle, and when we talk about it on the tour, everyone is really engaged hearing about that.”
The botanical waste is also given to Splitters Farm and others as organic animal feed. But it is not the only waste product making its way onto farms. With rum production now underway, Kalki Moon provides the dunder by-product to Austchilli who use it as a fertiliser. Austchilli in turn provide Kalki Moon with the chillies to make their limited-release Chilli Vodka – completing the circle again.
Visit Kalki Moon at 22 Commercial Street, Bundaberg 07 4151 0396