Beenleigh Rum Distillery is a heritage-listed rum distillery at Distillery Road, Eagleby (once part of Beenleigh), City of Logan, Queensland, Australia. The distillery produces Beenleigh Rum. It was built from to . It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 6 March 2004.
History
The Beenleigh Rum Distillery on the banks of the Albert River was licensed in 1884 and utilised molasses from sugar grown and crushed in the area. The town of Beenleigh developed consequent to the growth of sugar related industries in the area and took its name from the plantation that the preceded the establishment of the distillery.
Moreton Bay penal colony commandant Captain Patrick Logan explored the area around the Logan and Albert Rivers in 1826. Timbergetters in search of cedar and hardwoods moved into the district around 1840, but the first European settlers took up land in 1864 under the Sugar and Coffee regulations, a government scheme to encourage the growing of these potentially valuable crops in the new colony of Queensland. Leases of between were available for three years with an option to purchase, in order to encourage the establishment of plantations. 39 leases were granted in the first months of the scheme's operation of which 10 were in the Logan area, and at all of which it was intended to grow sugar.
Sugar cane had been first brought to Australia in 1788 but subsequent plantings at Sydney, Port Macquarie and Norfolk Island failed to be commercially viable. Captain Louis Hope grew a cane crop successfully in Ormiston in Queensland in 1862. By 1864 the first commercial sugar mill in Australia had been established by him at Ormiston and interest in growing sugar cane spread rapidly. By 1867 an estimated were under cane in the Brisbane area and by the end of the decade, cane had also been successfully established further north at Maryborough, Mackay and Bundaberg, where the warmer climate proved more suitable, and sugar was established as a major commercial crop in Queensland.
An area of land between the Albert and Logan Rivers was planted with cane in 1865 by the partnership of Francis Gooding and John Davy. The brothers-in-law had arrived in Brisbane from Devon, England, in 1862 and named their new plantation "Beenleigh" after their home in England. By 1866 their plantation was productive and in 1868, the Inspector of Distilleries reported that the Logan area had under cultivation and a still was in the course of erection at "Malungmovel", George Board's plantation. The production of rum was encouraged by the Queensland Government as it brought in revenue from taxes and was a popular commodity, being easier to keep and transport than beer or wines in an era when transport was slow.
A mobile distillery also served the numerous plantations along the rivers. This was the steam operated "Walrus", a boat which was built at Cleveland in 1864 as a sailing vessel, then sold in 1869 to James Stewart who converted it to steam and installed a still. A licence to operate as a floating distillery was reluctantly granted on 14 April 1869 by the Inspector of Distilleries, although he deemed the boat unsuitable for the purpose, as there was then no other licensed distillery in the area. The boat then operated as the Pioneer Floating Sugar Mill. Its licence was not renewed in 1872 as it did not fulfil the requirement to carry cane-crushing equipment and acted solely as a distillery, producing rum from molasses. This is the thick syrup remaining after cane juice has been crystallised by boiling to produce sugar. Rum is produced from this by-product by adding water and yeast and fermenting the mixture. This is then boiled and the alcohol vapour separated out by distillation, the condensate being collected, perhaps charcoal filtered, and stored in casks to mature.
By 1869 Davy and Gooding had under cane and were constructing a sugar mill, which was in operation by the following year. The boom in sugar in the region in the 1870s led to the rapid development of the nearby township that took its name from the Beenleigh plantation. By 1876 this was described by Baillière's Gazetteer as a provincial centre serving an area with nine sugar mills and two distilleries within six kilometres of the township.