Old Kempton Distillery

Kempton's Midlands and the Case for Slow Spirits

Tasmania's spirits industry has developed along two distinct lines. One runs through Hobart and its surrounds, where urban distilleries court the tourism dollar with polished tasting rooms and cocktail lists built for Instagram. The other runs through the rural Midlands, where production comes first and the visitor experience is shaped by the work itself rather than the theatre around it. Old Kempton Distillery, at 26 Main St in the small town of Kempton, sits firmly in the second category. The Midlands Highway passes through here, connecting Hobart to Launceston through a corridor of Georgian sandstone towns that were once staging posts for coaches and are now, quietly, becoming a different kind of destination.

Kempton sits roughly an hour north of Hobart, in a stretch of Tasmania that gets less attention than the Tamar Valley wine corridor or the Coal River producers. That relative obscurity is partly geographic — there's no obvious cluster of cellar doors to string into a day trip — and partly because the Midlands aesthetic resists easy packaging. It's a working agricultural landscape, and the distilleries that have set up here, including Belgrove Distillery, are closer in spirit to farm operations than to branded lifestyle destinations. That context matters when you're trying to understand what Old Kempton represents.

The 2025 Pearl 2 Star Prestige Rating

In 2025, Old Kempton Distillery received a Pearl 2 Star Prestige rating , a recognition that places it in a specific tier within the EP Club assessment framework. Pearl 2 Star Prestige is not the ceiling of that system, but it is a meaningful threshold: it signals consistent production quality, a clear house identity, and the kind of output that rewards serious attention. In the context of Australian artisan distilling, where the category has grown rapidly since licensing changes made small-batch production commercially viable, a Prestige rating functions as a useful filter. It distinguishes distilleries that are producing with genuine craft intent from the much larger group operating at a more functional level.

For the category as a whole, 2025 represents a consolidation phase. The wave of new entrants that followed regulatory liberalisation has shaken out somewhat, and the producers who remained standing are the ones with a coherent product philosophy and enough production discipline to build a recognisable style. Old Kempton's Pearl 2 Star rating should be read against that backdrop. It arrives at a moment when the field is more competitive than it was five years ago, which gives the credential more weight, not less. Comparable rated distilleries in the Australian context include Archie Rose Distilling Co in Sydney and Bundaberg Rum Distillery in Bundaberg, both of which have established strong regional identities through consistent output over time.

What a Midlands Address Means for Production

The production logic of a rural Midlands address is worth spelling out. Tasmania's climate is cooler than the mainland, with the Midlands sitting in a rain shadow that makes it drier than the state's east and west coasts. The temperature range across seasons is more pronounced than coastal Tasmania, which has implications for spirit maturation: barrels breathe differently here, and the interaction between spirit and wood follows a rhythm shaped by cold winters and warm, dry summers. This is the same basic principle that makes highland whisky production in Scotland distinct from lowland production, and it applies equally in the southern hemisphere.

The agricultural character of the region also matters. Grain production in the Tasmanian Midlands has a long history, and the proximity of raw materials to distillation has historically shaped the economics and the character of local spirits. Where mainland Australian distilleries often source grain from elsewhere and compete primarily on distillation technique and maturation approach, Midlands producers have the option of building a more complete provenance story from the ground up. Whether that option is exercised fully varies by producer, but the structural possibility exists here in a way it doesn't in urban distilling environments.

This is a dynamic visible across premium spirit regions internationally. Producers in Islay, in the Kentucky Bluegrass, and in the Cognac appellation all derive part of their credibility from the specificity of place , the claim that what is in the bottle could only have been made here. Australian whisky and gin producers are building that argument incrementally, and the Tasmanian Midlands is one of the more coherent geographical bases from which to make it. For a broader picture of how Tasmanian producers sit within the Australian premium drinks scene, the full Kempton guide provides useful context.

The Distillery in Its Peer Set

Positioning Old Kempton within its peer set requires distinguishing between two different competitive groups. The first is other Tasmanian distilleries , a group that has grown considerably and includes producers across a wide quality range. Within that group, a Pearl 2 Star Prestige rating places Old Kempton toward the upper end. The second peer set is broader: Australian artisan distilleries recognised for production quality at the national level. Here the comparison points shift. Archie Rose in Sydney operates at larger scale with a wider product range; Belgrove, also in Kempton, has built an international profile around its rye whisky program. Old Kempton's position in this landscape is that of a Prestige-rated Midlands producer: smaller footprint, specific provenance, and a recognition that signals seriousness without the marketing apparatus of a national brand.

The comparison with wine producers in comparable regional positions is instructive. Bass Phillip in Gippsland built an international reputation from a remote Victorian address through production discipline and varietal focus. Brokenwood in the Hunter Valley achieved recognition through consistent quality across a sustained production history. The parallel isn't exact , spirits and wine production differ in significant ways , but the underlying principle holds: regional specificity, combined with demonstrable production quality, is a viable path to recognition outside the major metropolitan markets. Old Kempton's 2025 Prestige rating suggests it is on that path.

For visitors interested in the broader Australian premium drinks scene beyond spirits, producers like All Saints Estate in Rutherglen, Cape Mentelle in Margaret River, and Angove Family Winemakers in Renmark offer a sense of how established regional identities translate into sustained production credibility , the same framework through which Old Kempton's Prestige rating should be read.

Planning a Visit

Old Kempton Distillery is located at 26 Main St, Kempton TAS 7030 , on the main road through the town centre, which makes it direct to find when travelling the Midlands Highway between Hobart and Launceston. Current hours, booking requirements, and tasting formats are not listed in the public database at time of publication, so direct contact with the distillery before visiting is advisable, particularly if travelling specifically for a tasting experience rather than as a stop on a longer Midlands route. Pricing and visit formats for Prestige-rated producers in this category can vary significantly depending on whether structured tastings are available or whether product is sold direct without a formal experience component.

The Midlands as a region rewards a slower approach: producers here are not set up for the rapid throughput of a Yarra Valley cellar-door circuit, and the distances between points of interest mean that a focused itinerary covering two or three producers makes more sense than attempting to cover the full region in a day. Combining a visit to Old Kempton with nearby Belgrove Distillery gives a useful comparison between two Prestige-calibre producers operating from the same town, each with a distinct production identity. Additional reference points for understanding the range of Australian artisan production are available through producers like Leading's Wines in Great Western, Brown Brothers in King Valley, Bird in Hand in Adelaide Hills, and Blue Pyrenees Estate in Pyrenees.