A family holiday to the French Caribbean sparked Paul’s love of Agricole rum and prompted him to build Australia’s first and only Agricole distillery, starting out in a small farm shed on the family farm. Paul continues to oversee the distilling and every aspect of the distillery. “I had to admit it was pretty good as I’d never had a Ti’ Punch before – a little raw sugar, squeeze and drop a fresh lime cheek and a good shot of white Agricole rum, well stirred and sipped slowly. After a while I began to see what they were talking about – this bright, clean, heady spirit was unlike any rum I’d tasted before. It had a vibrancy and complexity that I will forever associate with that little bar on that little beach on that small island in the company of friendly people, so far away. Later I sought out the distillery where that rum was made and spent many hours talking to staff and exploring every aspect of its production from the crushing of the cane in the big roller mill driven by an ancient steam engine, the fiery boiler at one end of the building, to the large steel fermenters and copper column stills at the other end from which flowed that sweet aromatic spirit. After dinner that night I was treated to a 20 year-old, tropical aged, sipping rum, equal to any fine single malt whisky I’d tasted, and in that moment I became a believer in this unusual French agricole rum.” Paul’s time on Martinique got him thinking. Australia is a sugar cane producing country. Why not try to develop an Australian expression of this quality, sipping style of rum drawing from the unique provenance of the homeland where he grew up. And so Husk Distillers was established in a small green farm shed with a 50L, and later a 1000L hand beaten copper still. Over the next 10 years he would pioneer the cultivation and production of this new style of rum from the freshly crushed juice of the finest local sugar cane varieties on a little farm distillery across the river from Tumbulgum in northern NSW. To reflect its nature and characteristics, he named this style Cultivated Australian Rum.