Qualla: Beenleigh Rum Distillery

Beenleigh Rum Distillery: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. It started with a beached boat. Sometime around 1884, a worn-out steamer called the Walrus came to rest on the muddy bank of the Albert River, and aboard it sat a tremendous copper still. For cane growers Francis Gooding and John Davy, this was less a wreck than a windfall. They bought the still, took out a distillery licence, and began turning the molasses from their own sugar into rum. More than 140 years later, on the same patch of riverbank at Eagleby, the copper pot still is still working - the only one of its kind in Australia, and the heart of the country's oldest registered distillery, holder of licence number one.

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Image: Public domain

Beenleigh Rum Distillery: The Bosun and His Floating Still

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stark, William, Public domain. The Walrus had a colourful life before it ran aground. Built at Cleveland in 1864 as a sailing vessel, it was sold in 1869 to James Stewart, who converted it to steam and fitted it with a still. Stewart - known as 'The Bosun' - ran it as a floating sugar mill up and down the Albe...

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Image: Stark, William | Public domain

Beenleigh Rum Distillery: Sugar and Survival on the River Flats

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SpringbokSam, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Logan district grew some of Queensland's earliest sugar. Gooding and Davy, brothers-in-law who had sailed from Devon in 1862, planted cane between the Albert and Logan Rivers in 1865 and named their plantation 'Beenleigh' after home. The township that grew up nearby took the ...

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Image: SpringbokSam | CC BY-SA 4.0

Beenleigh Rum Distillery: A Gold Medal and a Brick Store

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Heritage branch staff, CC BY 3.0. By the 1890s, when many smaller plantations were failing to frost, disease, and recession, Beenleigh thrived. A brick spirit store went up in 1890, built in two stages of English-bond brickwork that still stands as the oldest fabric on the site. In 1899 Beenleigh rum took a gold ...

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Image: Heritage branch staff | CC BY 3.0

Beenleigh Rum Distillery: What the River Made

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Olszewski, CC BY-SA 3.0. Beenleigh's red still house rises from the flat river country and can be seen from the Pacific Highway and from the Albert itself - a landmark on land that is otherwise low and open. Inside, the contrast tells the story: gleaming modern columns and tanks alongside a copper still ...

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Image: Chris Olszewski | CC BY-SA 3.0