Today we caught up with friends who are house sitting in Hervey Bay . We met Keith & Sue at the golf club and have had a few enjoyable days & nights . They came to Bundaberg for the day , so we went to the Bundaberg Rum Distillery for a tour through the distillery .
After paying our entry fee we were free to roam through the museum before the tour started . The museum is housed in old barrels , with exhibits in each of them giving you some of the history of the distillery . It has burnt down twice - one fire caused by a lightning strike - and burnt it to the ground . Rum was flowing down the gutters , residents were scooping it up in buckets trying to save it , most however flowed into the Burnett River . The river burnt for 3 days , and crabs , fish & prawns were all marinated and char grilled !!
There were many other stories , but we ran out of time to get it all , here’s some photo’s of it .
This one is some of the old labels people may remember .
This wall was the star attraction - a wall of rum - the 3 rows with white labels are all street names from Bundaberg that were flooded in 2013 , the rest are various releases of new advertising and also their premium rums & blends . A very impressive wall indeed !!!
Of course there’s the Bundy Bear .
The tour starts in the auditorium , where everything is explained . There are some old barrels in racks , they used to contain the molasses in the early days , now they can hold a maximum of 10,000 gallons in each well , and there are 3 wells !! that’s a lot of molasses !!
All electronic equipment is left in a locker , car keys etc , so you cant accidentally drop something in the molasses well - it is 5m deep !!! The fermenting process was explained , yeast growth and how they extract the alcohol from the mix using steam . The reason for no electronic equipment is because of the alchohol - very explosive !!! Next we went to the blending room - you can do a tour later in the afternoon and blend your own rum , and you get to take 2 bottles of it home with you at the end of the tour - and when you run out of it at home you can ring them and they’ll mail some more back to you after they’ve blended it for you , it also has your name on the label !!
Employees have a tough life - all are encouraged to be taste testers - they do their testing at 9am in the morning !!!
There is a huge amount of rum here - 35 barrels , and each barrel contains 70,000 litres !!!! They export 4% of what they make - 3% of that goes to New Zealand , and that leaves 96% consumed in Australia !!!
After all the discussion about all the different types & blends we made our way back to the shop & tasting area - you get to taste 2 different types as part of the tour , so we sat and indulged in some - salted caramel liqueur ; small batch rum aged in port barrels , and a chocolate / coffee flavour liqueur - all very nice , but would have been nicer with a little food in the stomach , ah well happy days !!
An enjoyable morning that turned into the afternoon , now down to Grunske’s Seafood Restaurant for lunch beside the Burnett River . A very pleasant setting for lunch and a quiet beer .
Next was the Bundaberg Brewing Company , famous for it’s Ginger Beer & other fermented drinks . You can taste all of their varieties , you can also do a small tour if you want , we all tasted , then bought some and headed for home . Keith & Sue had to head back to Hervey Bay , so we said our goodbyes and headed off - an enjoyable day was had by all .
Here’s a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LQx5pc58_PQjkjAg11ZucQL7d4E&usp=sharing
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