Our Story

Trees & Rain · 1838 Spirits

Single malt Tasmanian whisky from 1838 Spirits — made by a chef, a sculptor and a family who came to whisky the long way around.

Trees and Rain

The name Trees and Rain was inspired by one of Phil's own bronze sculptures — an original piece, editioned in a run of five, one of which sits in the central atrium of the Islington Hotel in Hobart.

The work explores the essential relationship between humans, trees and rain — how forests, through the process of transpiration, help generate the water cycles that sustain life. Without trees there would be less rain; without rain, life as we know it could not exist.

That same relationship between wood and water lies at the heart of whisky making. Oak shapes the spirit over time, while water is present at every stage of its journey — from distillation to maturation and, ultimately, the glass.

Sculpture and whisky are not separate creative pursuits, but expressions of the same philosophy — raw material, patience, and the balance of form, texture and restraint.

Trees and Rain is therefore more than a name. It reflects a belief that nature, craftsmanship and creativity are inseparable — and that the finest whisky, like the finest sculpture, is a collaboration between human hands, time, wood and water.

From the kitchen to the cask

Phil and Kylie spent forty years in kitchens. Phil trained at UTAS, cooked his way around Australia and the Mediterranean, and for nine years owned and ran an Italian restaurant on the Sunshine Coast, winning several awards along the way.

When they sold it, they came to Tasmania to manage Nant Distillery at Bothwell and set up its restaurant. They lived on the estate, presenting whisky banquets and catering for functions, while Phil painted the landscapes of the surrounding midlands — drawn to both the history and the beauty of the country.

It was there that the idea took shape: a contract distillery where other people could make their own whisky properly. That became White Label Distillery, with Anthony White as head distiller. In time, Phil moved most of his shares into a label of his own.

Why 1838

Trees and Rain Single Malt is produced by 1838 Spirits Pty Ltd, and the year is deliberate. In 1838, distilling was outlawed in Van Diemen's Land — a ban that famously followed Lady Jane Franklin's dim view of stills, and one that would keep legal whisky out of Tasmania for more than 150 years, until the licences returned in 1992.

Naming the company after the year it all stopped felt like the right way to mark how far Tasmanian whisky has come.

How we make it

Forty years of cooking leaves you with a palate — and that is what we bring to the whisky.

Our spirit is made from Pale Ale barley and Scottish brewer's yeast, cut with Tasmanian water and distilled in copper Knapp Lewer pot stills. From there it is a matter of patience and attention: moving the whisky from cask to cask as it matures, tasting as we go, and finding the right cut. We work in port, sherry and bourbon wood, in casks small enough that every one tastes like itself.

Everything is bottled, labelled, waxed and packed by hand at St Helens, on Tasmania's east coast.

Art and whisky

Alongside the whisky, Phil works in bronze and ceramic. His sculpture has shown at GOMA, Fireworks Gallery in Brisbane and Handmark Gallery in Salamanca, and he has spent years training Indigenous artists to translate their work into bronze.

That practice now feeds directly back into the bottles — including a small series of hand-thrown, hand-painted ceramic decanters, each one glazed with a Tasmanian tree and filled with a single cask.

It is the same instinct either way: raw material, time, and the patience to let something arrive.