Black Snake Distillery

Stephen Beale and Rosemary Smith noticed how much agave grew, semi-wild, around their patch of the Narrabri district and in 2016 set about distilling it into something in the style of mezcal, a spirit they call ASp, made from foraged plants rather than a cultivated monoculture. The distillery runs off-grid on solar power, six hours' drive north-west of Sydney, and its range moves from a bright Joven through Reposado and Anejo to a Pechuga, the traditional technique of suspending meat above the still during a run, done here with kangaroo rather than turkey or chicken. It has drawn attention well beyond the district: a silver medal at the London Spirits Competition, a bronze at the Australian Distilled Spirits Awards, and a place on critic Nick Ryan's national top-twenty spirits list. As far as the couple can tell, they were the first in the country distilling agave paddock to bottle, which makes the cellar door on Kaputar Road less a novelty stop than the origin point of an entire Australian category.