Most Tasmanian whisky asks a premium. Hellyers Road, almost alone on the shelf, hands two of its bottles back to you under the price of their neighbours.
That is the rare thing here, and it is worth saying plainly before the detail. Australian single malt is expensive, and Tasmanian single malt is the dearest of the lot. Four Hellyers Road bottles carry a reading this week, and two of them are priced below the whiskies the model rates nearest them on taste, their flavour-crowd. On a shelf where almost everything local asks over the odds, a bottle priced under its field is close to a unicorn, and this distillery has a pair of them. The brand's middle price is $135, but the value is not in the middle. It is at the entry.
The Roaring Forties is the flagship and the best buy in the house. It is the distillery's signature make: banana and a creamy texture, a tropical lift, light and grassy with a cereal note underneath. It drinks younger and brighter than its price suggests. At $99 against a crowd near $128, it is about 23% under its neighbours, the widest discount of any bottle in this range and one of the better value calls anywhere on the Tasmanian shelf. A local single malt under a hundred dollars is unusual enough; one priced a clear quarter below its flavour-matches is the bottle to grab.
1/Climbing the Hellyers Road range. Two Tasmanian rungs, one step apart. Hellyers Road 7 Peated, $139 this week. The Journeyman 8, $150. One peated and younger; one a year older, no peat. The question for each step: what does going up get you, and what does the younger bottle give the older one's drinker? Let's climb.
2/Step up to the Journeyman 8 at $150: a year's more age for $11. Those ex-bourbon casks give banana lollies and creme caramel up top, black bread and savoury stock underneath. Going up, it gives a 7 Peated drinker about 99% of what their own bottle does. Coming back down, the 7 Peated gives a Journeyman 8 drinker about 98% of what theirs does, for 93% of its price. What changes is mostly less of the wine-cask fruit, and that one year.
3/So, a yes for each. The 7 Peated if peat's your thing: light, sweet, an ashy finish like drawing on a cigar. The Journeyman 8 if you'd swap that wine-cask fruit for something drier and more savoury. At about $5.45 and $5.88 a standard drink, each pour at home sits under a $13 pint. More is not always better. Both earn a yes; take the one that's already yours.
310 bottles at Dan Murphy's can be priced per standard drink this week. Cheapest first: Grant's Triple Wood 1 litre at $1.99 a standard drink; the median is $4.16; Dalmore 21 Malt is the highest at $42.68. 235 of the 310 come in under a pint at the pub, which works out at $6.28 a standard drink.
305 bottles at Dan Murphy's can be priced per standard drink this week. Cheapest first: McAllister 1 litre at $2.00 a standard drink; the median is $4.03; Dalmore 21 Malt is the highest at $42.68. 228 of the 305 come in under a pint at the pub, which works out at $6.28 a standard drink.
Tasmanian whisky has a reputation for costing a fortune, and Hellyers Road usually plays to it. Not this week. Its two cheapest bottles both come in under what their neighbours ask, which for an Australian single malt is worth stopping for.
No Hellyers Road counts as a bargain right now. Every bottle sits over its neighbours, and the only real question is by how much.
Tasmanian single malt has a reputation for costing the earth. Hellyers Road, out of Burnie on the island's north coast, is one of the more level-headed names in it, and this week its whole range sits only a little above what comparable bottles fetch. Not cheap. Just not silly.
| bottle | region | latest ticket | read | window price | CE 360° mean | premium | shelf rank | per std drink | drink rank | content |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hellyers Road 7 Year Old Peated Single Malt Whisky | Tasmania | $149.99 | observed | $149.99 | $112.13 | 25.2% | #9 of 15 | $5.88 | #5 of 15 | 4 |
| Hellyers Road Double Cask Whisky | Tasmania | $119.99 | observed | $119.99 | $96.78 | 19.3% | #6 of 15 | $4.70 | #3 of 15 | 2 |
| Hellyers Road Roaring Forties Tasmanian Single Malt Whisky | Tasmania | $98.99 | observed | $98.99 | $78.83 | 20.4% | #7 of 15 | $3.62 | #1 of 15 | 2 |
| Hellyers Road The Journeyman 8 Year Old Tasmanian Single Malt Whisky | Tasmania | $149.99 | observed | $149.99 | $110.70 | 26.2% | #10 of 15 | $5.45 | #4 of 15 | 3 |