Westerway Raspberry Farm Story

To make our Tasmanian Raspberry Gin the best it can possibly be, we need the best raspberries we can find. Luckily, we don’t have to look too far. 

We want to shine a light on where they come from and what makes them so vital to making good gin. The secret is in the farm…

Westerway Raspberry Farm is in the Derwent Valley of Southern Tasmania, about 30 minutes away from our distillery. Richard Clark, owner and operator, started his business over 25 years ago when his dad tasked him with selling raspberries to a few greengrocers in Hobart.

The business only grew from those humble beginnings. Westerway Raspberry Farm now sells 400,000kg of fruit each year and supplies over 150 customers across Australia. We’re thankful to count ourselves as part of that number.

The variety of raspberries we use from the farm are their Willamette raspberries. Dark, juicy and rich, this variety packs a bunch of flavour, despite its smaller size. Their short shelf life means they’re unsuitable for a supermarket, but perfect for us!

It’s important to use processing heritage varieties that are full of those characteristics that are then infused into the product. As Richard says, “Willamette raspberries make wonderful products… jams, juices, liqueurs, ice cream.”

We’ve been sourcing our Willamette raspberries from Westerway for over 6 years now. We started with a 20 kg batch, and now we’re up to over 2,500 kg of raspberries each year. Provided the raspberry gin keeps flowing, there’ll be plenty more where that came from.